Damon
Meaning
to tame, loyal friend
The story
Damon is Greek, from a root meaning to tame or subdue, and it belongs to one of antiquity's great friendship stories: Damon stood hostage for Pythias under a tyrant's death sentence, and the loyalty of the pair astonished the king into mercy. The American record gave it a generational crest of about 20,300 in the 1970s, a settle, then a second wind: about 9,700 in the 1990s and 8,700 in the 2000s, then 7,100 in the 2010s, the decade a television vampire lent the name a darker glamour, and 4,200 so far this decade, every one of them a boy. Damian, the Latin sibling, runs bigger at about 110,300 and carries its own story here. All-time: about 68,800 boys to 320 girls. A friend to the death in the legend, a heartthrob in the reruns: the record holds both.
Damon around the world
One shared root links 4 names across 3 languages.
Shared root: traditionally derived from Greek daman "to tame": Damianos the physician-saint and the ancient Damon are sibling formations on the same (uncertain) root
The constellation
More branches
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Damon peaked in the 2000s and the 2020s in nearly equal measure.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
243 people · the #22,137 first name in Brazil · about 1 in 1,000,000 · median age 26
Among people named Damon living in Brazil at the 2022 census, more were born in the 1990s than in any other decade.
The census also counted 43 born between 2020 and August 2022, too recent a span to chart.
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Damon
Most people given the name Damon in the United States were born between 1970 and 2009. The Damon you meet today is most often in his 30s or 40s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Damon deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Damon truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Damon fits with your family’s names and surname.
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