The first name Dylan is derived from the Welsh ‘dy’ for ‘great(kind)’ and ‘Ilanw’ for ‘flood’. In Welsh mythology, Dylan is known as the son/god of the ‘sea’. It is also sometimes used as a family name in the USA.
Dylan is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The first name Dylan is one of the top 100 most popular boys names in the US – currently at #31 in our SmartGenius ranking. Over 1,000 babies each year are named Dylan, accounting for approximately 0.50 % of all newborn boys. In total, there are currently 408,800 people – children, adults and seniors – named Dylan living in the United States, which is approximately 0.12 % of the entire population.
The first name Dylan is derived from the Welsh ‘dy’ for ‘great(kind)’ and ‘Ilanw’ for ‘flood’. In Welsh mythology, Dylan is known as the son/god of the ‘sea’. It is also sometimes used as a family name in the USA.
Did you know... that the name Dylan is traditionally masculine, but since 2003 it is also given as a feminine first name in the USA?
Bob Dylan (*1941)
Bob Dylan Robert Allen Zimmerman, known as Bob Dylan,is a U.S. musician, singer-songwriter, writer and artist, considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He began his career in the 1960s as a singer-songwriter in the folk music scene of New York City. In addition to his musical career, he has also worked as a writer and painter, as well as a peace activist.
Dylan O'Brien (*1991)
Dylan O'Brien's first known role was that of Mieczys?aw 'Stiles' Stilinski in the MTV series 'Teen Wolf', which began in 2011. He appeared in the series from 2011 to 2017. He also starred as Thomas in the 'Maze Runner' movie series that was released between 2014 and 2018. In addition to his work as an actor, O'Brien has also worked as a producer, director and voice actor.
Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)
Dylan Thomas was a Welsh writer and poet who rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s. He published a variety of poems and prose, including '18 Poems' (1934), 'The Map of Love' (1939), and 'Collected Poems 1934-1952' (1952). Thomas also worked for the theater, writing several radio broadcasts and plays. To this day, he is considered to be one of the most important Welsh writers.
Dylan Hartley (*1986)
Dylan Hartley is a former English rugby union player best known as a hooker (goalkeeper). Hartley played for the England national team and captained the side from 2016 until the end of his international career in 2019. Hartley captained England to their first Grand Slam since 2003 in 2016, two Six Nations titles and, most notably, a historic 3-0 Cook Cup win over Australia in 2016.
When you hear the name Dylan, you might first think of people. But did you know that there are also places with the name Dylan? Are you also called Dylan? Maybe one day you will visit the places that are named just like you...
Dylan is an impact crater on 'Europa', a moon of the planet 'Jupiter'. In 2000, the crater was named after the Welsh sea god 'Dylan Eil Ton'.
is an unincorporated community near Bentonville in Arkansas, USA. You can also find a small village with this name in Texas.
There are only 386 different male names registered in every single state in the U.S., and Dylan is one of them. However, Dylan is not equally widespread in all states, but people in Nevada seem to particularly fancy this name – the 3,215 men called Dylan who live here are 0,568% of all male residents and push their name up to #38 in our SmartGenius statistics, easily placing it in the top 100 most common male names in Nevada. If you look at all the states in the USA together, you can currently find as many as 408,800 people with the name Dylan. Across all regions and age groups, this lands Dylan on position 79 in our SmartGenius ranking of the top male names – of course, the current popularity as a baby name for newborns looks somewhat different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter D is a quite popular first letter for boys’ names. That’s because 8.5% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters J and A are more common for boys' names.
With five letters, the name Dylan is comparatively short. In fact, 17.0% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly five letters. Only 7% of all first names are even shorter, while 75% have more than five letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
Therefore: As 8.5% of all boys' names start with a D, this initial letter occurs nearly 2.5-times as often as all 26 letters on average – and the most common one of all the boys’ names starting with D is David.
If your name is Dylan and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Dylan, you can simply say:
Dinosaur
Yoyo
Lion
Apple
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Dylan
Dylan
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
D
Y
L
A
N
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
D
Y
L
A
N
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Dylan sounds like this:
