Danica
- Pronunciation
- [Da-ni-ca]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Morning Star
- Origin
- Slavic
About the Name Danica
Danica is a name of Slavic origin meaning morning star, traditionally associated with Venus as it appears just before sunrise. The word danica functions as a common noun in several South Slavic languages where it literally denotes the morning star, making this one of those rare names whose meaning is both poetic and astronomically concrete. It has been used across Central and Eastern Europe for centuries, carried by the imagery of light breaking the darkness — a symbolism that translates elegantly across cultures.
Danica Patrick (born 1982) is an American former professional racing driver whose career across the IndyCar Series and NASCAR Cup Series made her the first and only woman to win the Indianapolis 300, which she achieved in April 2008. That milestone helped lift Danica from a niche Slavic import to a name with wider American recognition. The name first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2005, peaked at #307 in 2007, and recorded 8,724 top-1000 births across its chart run. By 2016 it ranked #867 with 325 births, eased to #874 with 313 births in 2017, and reached its final tracked position of #997 with 262 births in 2018.
The recorded variant is Danika, a spelling that preserves the same Slavic sound with a slight shift in orthography. Danica's combination of celestial meaning, cross-cultural elegance, and a notable real-world trailblazer gives it a quiet strength that sets it apart from more purely trend-driven names of its era.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Danica
US Popularity History (2005–2018)
Annual US births named Danica by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2007 with 1,109 girls named Danica (girl rank #307 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2018, ranked #997 for girls (262 US births). That's 690 places below its 2007 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 Danica Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Danica the strongest states are Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wisconsin | #625 | 32 |
| 2 | Minnesota | #642 | 24 |
| 3 | Arizona | #672 | 63 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | #757 | 32 |
| 5 | Colorado | #781 | 32 |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | #807 | 107 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #809 | 85 |
| 8 | Washington | #811 | 55 |
| 9 | Virginia | #847 | 44 |
| 10 | Missouri | #905 | 17 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas | #1,400 | 66 |
| 2 | New York | #1,106 | 75 |
| 3 | Ohio | #1,014 | 44 |
| 4 | Illinois | #996 | 28 |
| 5 | California | #940 | 245 |
| 6 | Missouri | #905 | 17 |
| 7 | Virginia | #847 | 44 |
| 8 | Washington | #811 | 55 |
| 9 | New Jersey | #809 | 85 |
| 10 | Pennsylvania | #807 | 107 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Danica in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Danika | Female | English |
Famous People Named Danica
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Danica.
- Danica Patrick — Race Car Driver (1982)
Looking for names like Danica?
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 Danica to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Danica against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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