Denese
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Denese has been given to 1,588 babies in the U.S. since 1928. 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 1954, with 98 recorded.
Babies named Denese, 2006
1 in 791,000
Denese 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Denese?
Denese had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2006, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2006
- 1 in 791,000
- 5 of 3,956,166 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 380,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2006
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 548,442 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Denese sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2006 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 548,442 children born in 2006 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Denese. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Deneses were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Denese was born before 1960 — so the typical Denese is around 65 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1950s
- 40.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 3.1%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,464
- People you could plausibly meet
1950s — 40.7% of all recorded uses (646).
Is Denese 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 1954 (98)
- Years since peak
- 71
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 35.4% average annual change
Spellings of Denese
Denese is not the most common spelling — Denise is, with 56.5% against Denese's 0.24%.
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 Denese is used
Across 1910–2025, Denese was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 251,349 across all states with data. It was least common in Virginia (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in 100,000
- 2Ohio1 in 100,000
- 3Alabama1 in —
- 4Florida1 in —
- 5Georgia1 in —
- 6Louisiana1 in —
- 7Michigan1 in —
- 8North Carolina1 in —
Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Denese has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Denese around the world
Where Denese ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- Ireland1968–1968#401in 1968
- South Australia1945–1961#665in 1961
Popularity data from Central Statistics Office and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Denese by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Denese
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Denese
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.