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Dolph

Boys' name

Short form of Adolph

Dolph has been given to 626 babies in the U.S. since 1881. 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 1919, with 18 recorded.

Babies named Dolph, 2022

1 in 564,000

Dolph over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Dolph: meaning, origin, and history

Short form of Adolph

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Dolph means

Dolph is a short form of Adolph.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Dolph is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈdɑlf/ and /ˈdɒlf/ for Dolph.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Dolph → Adolph → Adolf. The family’s meaning is “noble + wolf”, recorded in English with the source elements adal and wulf.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Adolph.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 626 boys were recorded with the name Dolph between 1881 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 18 in 1919; its best national rank was #613 in 1881.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Dolph?

Dolph 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 564,000
6 of 3,385,755 births
Among boys only
1 in 291,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
391,139 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Dolph sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

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.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 391,139 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dolph. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dolphs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Dolph was born before 1931 — so the typical Dolph is around 94 today.

Median birth year
1931
About 94 years old
Biggest decade
1910s
20.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
0.96%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
162
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1910s — 20.3% of all recorded uses (127).

Is Dolph 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 1919 (18)
Years since peak
106
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#613
1881

Spellings of Dolph

Dolph is not the most common spelling — Ralph is, with 84.5% against Dolph's 0.13%.

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 Dolph is used

Across 1910–2025, Dolph was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 524,118 across all states with data.

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 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. Dolph has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Dolph by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#613
1881
Peak year
1919
18 that year
First recorded
1881
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
626
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Dolph

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

DolanDoltonDolphusDoloresDollyDollieDolenRodolphDollRolphAdolphRudolphDolphisAlphRalphRandalphRandolphRudalphRoudolph

Sibling names for Dolph

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Dolph

Top names of 1919, Dolph's peak yearThe 1910s in fullOther names that peaked in 1881Boys' names starting with D