Damon
- Pronunciation
- [Da-mon]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Loyal Friend DANAUS
- Origin
- Latin
About the Name Damon
Damon descends from the Greek Dámōn (Δάμων), of uncertain etymology — possibly from the Greek damān (to tame, to subdue). The name's overwhelming classical anchor is Damon and Pythias — the legendary friendship pair of ancient Sicily (4th century BCE) whose iconic loyalty (Damon offered his life as bond for his friend Pythias's safe return) became one of the foundational stories of Western friendship literature.
Notable modern bearers include American actor Matt Damon (using Damon as a surname, born 1970, the iconic American Oscar-winning actor whose career through Good Will Hunting 1997, the Bourne franchise, and The Martian 2015 made him one of the foundational figures of late-20th and early-21st-century American film); American basketball player Damon Stoudamire (born 1973, the iconic American NBA point guard); and the iconic Damon Salvatore of CW's The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017, played by Ian Somerhalder).
Damon held a US top-200 boys' rank from 1980 through 2010 and remains in steady use today, currently sitting in the US top 300 boys' rank. The name's appeal is its layered Greek-classical-friendship pedigree combined with two firm syllables — the in-built Damon/Pythias loyalty literary register, the strong Matt Damon Hollywood cultural anchor, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Greek and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Dame and Damy each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Damon, Damen, and Daimon have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Dámōn (Greek original), Damone (Italian alternate), and the original Greek Dámōn.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Damon
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Damon by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2000 with 1,044 boys named Damon (boy rank #289 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #501 for boys (604 US births). That's 212 places below its 2000 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Damon Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Damon the strongest states are Alaska, West Virginia, New Mexico.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | #172 | 17 |
| 2 | West Virginia | #276 | 49 |
| 3 | New Mexico | #312 | 20 |
| 4 | Indiana | #358 | 194 |
| 5 | Idaho | #359 | 52 |
| 6 | Nebraska | #363 | 41 |
| 7 | Kansas | #373 | 90 |
| 8 | Nevada | #373 | 73 |
| 9 | Arkansas | #376 | 75 |
| 10 | Missouri | #376 | 155 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #582 | 105 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #553 | 90 |
| 3 | Illinois | #545 | 173 |
| 4 | Virginia | #526 | 122 |
| 5 | Georgia | #514 | 183 |
| 6 | New York | #504 | 301 |
| 7 | Texas | #492 | 583 |
| 8 | California | #491 | 612 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #488 | 184 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #483 | 95 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Damon in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daman | Demon | Male | Celtic |
Looking for names like Damon?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Damon to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Damon against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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