Dacota
UnisexBoys' nameGirls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Dacota has been given to 679 babies in the U.S. since 1988. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1997, with 40 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 72% boys, 28% girls all-time.
Babies named Dacota, 2022
1 in 484,000
Dacota over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
Girls or boys — Dacota over time
In 2022, Dacota went to 0% girls and 100% boys.
A sex is only published in years it reached five applications, so a stretch at 0% or 100% means the other side stayed under that floor — not that it was never used.
How common is Dacota?
Dacota had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2022
- 1 in 484,000
- 7 of 3,385,755 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 249,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2022
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 335,262 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Dacota sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2022 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 335,262 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dacota. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Dacotas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Dacota was born before 1999 — so the typical Dacota is around 26 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1990s
- 52.3% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 59.3%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 491
- People you could plausibly meet
1990s — 52.3% of all recorded uses (257).
Is Dacota rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1997 (40)
- Years since peak
- 28
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 28.4% average annual change
Spellings of Dacota
Dacota is not the most common spelling — Dakota is, with 89.2% against Dacota's 0.47%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Dacota is used
Across 1910–2025, Dacota was most concentrated in Indiana — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,597,996 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Dacota has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Dacota by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Dacota
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Dacota
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.