Dawson
- Pronunciation
- [Daw-son]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Surname. Variant Of David Beloved.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Dawson
Dawson is an English patronymic surname meaning literally "son of David" — David being the medieval English form of the Hebrew name (see separate entry on David). The surname appears in English records continuously since at least the 13th century. The single most influential American cultural anchor for Dawson as a first name is the long-running American teen drama Dawson's Creek (1998–2003), in which James Van Der Beek played the title character Dawson Leery — a small-town aspiring filmmaker.
The Dawson's Creek effect on American naming was substantial: SSA records show Dawson's American climb beginning sharply in 1998 (the show's premiere year) and accelerating through the show's run. Dawson climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1995 to the US top 200 boys' rank by 2010 and has held that range since.
Other notable bearers include American filmmaker Lawrence "Larry" Dawson (using Dawson as a surname), 19th-century American statesman Dawson Walker, and contemporary musicians and athletes. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the popular -son ending family (Jackson, Jameson, Mason, Dawson), the surname-style sophistication, and the in-built Dawson's Creek pop-cultural register that resonates with millennial-era American parents. Two firm syllables, hard consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-professional. Common nicknames Dawse and the rare Daws each carry distinct registers; the alternate spelling Dawsen has its own SSA tracking. There are no significant international variants since the name's first-name use is essentially American.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Dawson
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Dawson by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2024 with 2,576 boys named Dawson (boy rank #139 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #143 for boys (2,487 US births). That's 4 places below its 2024 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 Dawson 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 Dawson the strongest states are West Virginia, Wyoming, Kentucky.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West Virginia | #63 | 283 |
| 2 | Wyoming | #78 | 30 |
| 3 | Kentucky | #84 | 559 |
| 4 | Idaho | #90 | 236 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #93 | 327 |
| 6 | South Dakota | #94 | 120 |
| 7 | Arkansas | #100 | 332 |
| 8 | Alabama | #102 | 523 |
| 9 | Utah | #102 | 455 |
| 10 | Iowa | #103 | 360 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #613 | 131 |
| 2 | California | #459 | 692 |
| 3 | Massachusetts | #380 | 136 |
| 4 | Connecticut | #342 | 61 |
| 5 | New Mexico | #327 | 39 |
| 6 | Arizona | #320 | 230 |
| 7 | Nevada | #318 | 95 |
| 8 | New York | #317 | 560 |
| 9 | Texas | #280 | 1,266 |
| 10 | Maryland | #258 | 231 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Dawson in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Dawson?
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 Dawson to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Dawson against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).