Dillon
Meaning
variant of Dylan, traditionally translated as 'son of the sea'
The story
Dillon is the Irish-surname spelling that American parents borrowed for the sound of Welsh Dylan, son of the sea, which makes it a name with an Irish passport and a Welsh soul. The record keeps an honest joke here: Marshal Matt Dillon kept order on Gunsmoke for twenty years from 1955, television's steadiest lawman, and through that entire run the name stayed at trace levels, barely registering with parents. What coincides with its climb is the Dylan wave of the 1980s and 1990s, when every spelling of the sound rose together; Dillon's peak is the 1990s, easing since. The record simply shows the two eras side by side: twenty years of the West's most reliable marshal with the curve flat, then a climb that arrives with the whole Dylan family at once.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Dillon peaked in the 1990s.
See popularity in Brazil
Popularity in Brazil
31 people · the #92,291 first name in Brazil · median age 26
Source: IBGE, Censo Demográfico 2022
When you meet Dillon
Most people given the name Dillon in the United States were born between 1990 and 2009. The Dillon you meet today is most often in his 20s or 30s.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Dillon deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Dillon 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 Dillon fits with your family’s names and surname.
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