Darlin
Darlin is given to both girls and boys: 35 girls and 9 boys were given it in 2025 (#4,090 among girls’ names and #8,400 among boys’, #6,125 among all names counting both); 936 Americans have been recorded with it since 1950 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Darlin by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Darlin?
#4,090 among girls’ names, 2025
Darlin rose from #9,085 in 2015 to #4,090 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 6.7 to 21.8 per million.
44 babies in 2007, the peak
Darlin peaked in 2007, when 44 babies were given it (35 girls, #4,320 among girls’ names). The 44 births of 2025 (girls and boys) are 100% of that peak.
Births by sex.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 35 | #4,090 | 21.8 |
| 2024 | 22 | #5,664 | 13.6 |
| 2023 | 15 | #7,339 | 9.3 |
| 2022 | 29 | #4,693 | 17.7 |
| 2021 | 21 | #5,796 | 12.8 |
| 2020 | 26 | #4,921 | 16.1 |
| 2019 | 21 | #5,838 | 12.5 |
| 2018 | 23 | #5,495 | 13.5 |
| 2017 | 15 | #7,542 | 8.7 |
| 2016 | 18 | #6,718 | 10.2 |
Every recorded year (52)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 12 | #9,085 | 6.7 |
| 2014 | 24 | #5,512 | 13.4 |
| 2013 | 16 | #7,479 | 9.1 |
| 2012 | 22 | #5,951 | 12.5 |
| 2011 | 24 | #5,589 | 13.6 |
| 2010 | 25 | #5,463 | 14.1 |
| 2009 | 24 | #5,750 | 13.1 |
| 2008 | 35 | #4,383 | 18.5 |
| 2007 | 35 | #4,320 | 18.2 |
| 2006 | 30 | #4,710 | 15.8 |
| 2005 | 28 | #4,733 | 15.2 |
| 2004 | 14 | #7,936 | 7.6 |
| 2003 | 21 | #5,634 | 11.5 |
| 2002 | 28 | #4,411 | 15.6 |
| 2001 | 25 | #4,718 | 13.9 |
| 2000 | 18 | #6,002 | 9.9 |
| 1999 | 11 | #8,365 | 6.2 |
| 1998 | 9 | #9,459 | 5.1 |
| 1997 | 14 | #6,564 | 8.0 |
| 1996 | 18 | #5,326 | 10.3 |
| 1995 | 14 | #6,337 | 8.0 |
| 1994 | 15 | #6,049 | 8.4 |
| 1993 | 16 | #5,729 | 8.8 |
| 1992 | 11 | #7,632 | 6.0 |
| 1991 | 10 | #8,108 | 5.3 |
| 1990 | 10 | #8,020 | 5.3 |
| 1989 | 8 | #8,934 | 4.3 |
| 1988 | 8 | #8,579 | 4.5 |
| 1987 | 5 | #11,713 | 2.9 |
| 1986 | 10 | #6,712 | 5.8 |
| 1984 | 5 | #10,785 | 3.0 |
| 1983 | 8 | #7,455 | 4.8 |
| 1981 | 8 | #7,556 | 4.8 |
| 1979 | 10 | #6,300 | 6.2 |
| 1977 | 5 | #9,949 | 3.3 |
| 1972 | 6 | #7,484 | 3.9 |
| 1966 | 5 | #6,788 | 3.0 |
| 1965 | 6 | #5,946 | 3.4 |
| 1961 | 5 | #6,762 | 2.5 |
| 1955 | 5 | #6,010 | 2.6 |
| 1954 | 10 | #3,768 | 5.1 |
| 1950 | 7 | #4,403 | 4.1 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Darlin a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Of the 936 Americans recorded as Darlin, 90% are girls and 10% boys.
Years with fewer than 20 babies given the name are left blank.
Girls and boys named Darlin: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Darlin, and how old are they?
An estimated 918 Americans named Darlin and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (98% of everyone recorded); the median is 18 years old and half are between 8 and 26. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 2,227 people named Darlin (1,542 women and girls, 685 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 743 born in the U.S. The Census count is 3.0 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census records the name people give, which for many is the short form Darlin rather than the name on their birth record, and it counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Darlin born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 6 | #3,017 | 0.3× |
Where Darlin is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Darlin is most over-represented in California: since 1950 it was given 1.2 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Darlin with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 14,097 babies since 1880, Darlin is the third most given (6.6% of them). In 2025 it was given to 44 of their 91 babies (48%), the most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Darlin
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Darlin and names like it
- Compare Darlin and DarleenBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2000sDarlin peaked in 2007.
- California’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Darlin since 1910.
- The top names of 2007The year the most babies were named Darlin.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Darlin alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with DMost given first.