Humanverse

Devon

Devon is a boy's name that peaked in 1997, when it was the 119th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 1,028th. About 89,000 Devons are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 29.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Devon boys named Devon

Girls and boys called Devon

Share of the name given to girls, 1880 to 2025 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Devon crossed from girls to boys in 1983, having already crossed in 1978, and has stayed there for 43 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 91% boys, and in 2025 it was 83%.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 102 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births
92,976
Estimated living today
89,000
Median age today
29
Peak year
1997
Best rank
119th
Rank in 2025
1,028th
First recorded
1914
Girls / boys
20,303 / 72,673

How old the living Devons are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 92,976 babies given the name since 1914, about 89,000 are alive — 96 in every hundred. Roughly 12,000 of them are children and 990 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1996 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

From Old English Defenas, which meant both "Devonians" and "Devon, " exemplifying the common Anglo-Saxon practice of naming a place after the people who inhabit it.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Devons

People named Devon with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Devon is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Devon is most concentrated in Delaware (1.9×), Nevada (1.7×), Colorado (1.6×), Florida (1.5×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1997

The most popular boys’ names the year Devon peaked:

All the names of 1997

Devon elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
England and Wales boys Devon 2,443 267th
England and Wales girls Devon 1,387 331st
France boys Devon +1 spelling 730 840th
Belgium boys Devon 282 332nd
Scotland girls Devon 209 214th
Ireland boys Devon 167 328th
Scotland boys Devon 133 258th
Switzerland boys Devon 55 1,063rd
Northern Ireland boys Devon 29 293rd
Northern Ireland girls Devon 14 370th
Ireland girls Devon 12 440th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Devon: births by region

RegionCountry Spelling BirthsShare of the region Best rank
German boys Switzerland Devon 21 0.002% 832nd
French boys Switzerland Devon 28 0.006% 494th
Italian boys Switzerland Devon 6 0.009% 113th

Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.

Devon: rank by region

In 2023, Devon was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Region Spelling Place Children
Flanders Devon 879 5

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Devon among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
Finland boys Devon 7 12

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Related names

Devon against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Devon with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.