Dude
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Dude has been given to 45 babies in the U.S. since 1912. 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 1918, with 8 recorded.
Babies named Dude, 1970
1 in 721,000
Dude 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Dude?
Dude had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1970, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1970
- 1 in 721,000
- 5 of 3,606,302 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 372,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1970
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 499,941 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Dude sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1970 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 499,941 children born in 1970 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dude. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Dudes were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Dude was born before 1918 — so the typical Dude is around 107 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 62.2% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 11.1%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 5
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 62.2% of all recorded uses (28).
Is Dude 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 1918 (8)
- Years since peak
- 107
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Very steady
- 0% average annual change
Spellings of Dude
Dude is not the most common spelling — Luke is, with 28.2% against Dude's <0.01%.
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.
Dude around the world
Where Dude 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.
- South Australia1997–1997#543in 1997
Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Dude by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Dude
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Dude
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.