Dax
- Pronunciation
- [Dax]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- A Town In Southwestern France Dating From Before The Roman Occupation.
- Origin
- French
About the Name Dax
Dax descends from the historic French town of Dax (Latin Aquae Tarbellicae) in the Aquitaine region of southwestern France — a town with a continuous history dating from before the Roman occupation, founded in pre-Roman times and known to the Romans for its thermal waters. The town's name has been continuously associated with the spa-and-hot-springs tradition.
The name's overwhelming modern American cultural anchor is American actor Dax Shepard (Dax Randall Shepard, born 1975, the iconic American actor of Parenthood 2010–2015 and the Armchair Expert podcast 2018–present, husband of Kristen Bell). The Dax Shepard cultural anchor has driven contemporary American Dax adoption substantially.
Other notable bearers include the iconic Jadzia Dax of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999, played by Terry Farrell, anchoring the name in late-1990s American science-fiction culture); American basketball player Dax Crum; and the contemporary fictional Dax of various contemporary novels. Dax's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 2005 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname/place-name sophistication, the strong Dax Shepard contemporary cultural anchor, and the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive D-X consonant rhythm. The name reads as distinctly contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — the rare Daxie and Daxx each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Dax and Daxx have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original French Dax place name.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Dax
US Popularity History (2007–2025)
Annual US births named Dax by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2019 with 749 boys named Dax (boy rank #413 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #692 for boys (393 US births). That's 279 places below its 2019 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 Dax 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 Dax the strongest states are North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota | #149 | 63 |
| 2 | Montana | #172 | 22 |
| 3 | South Dakota | #203 | 27 |
| 4 | Nebraska | #244 | 104 |
| 5 | Utah | #246 | 231 |
| 6 | Idaho | #265 | 85 |
| 7 | Iowa | #289 | 126 |
| 8 | West Virginia | #290 | 27 |
| 9 | Kansas | #321 | 112 |
| 10 | Wisconsin | #328 | 164 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #822 | 52 |
| 2 | New York | #800 | 136 |
| 3 | Georgia | #749 | 108 |
| 4 | North Carolina | #743 | 92 |
| 5 | Massachusetts | #704 | 35 |
| 6 | Virginia | #646 | 94 |
| 7 | California | #634 | 425 |
| 8 | Maryland | #629 | 53 |
| 9 | South Carolina | #618 | 38 |
| 10 | Florida | #599 | 243 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Dax in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Dax?
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 Dax to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Dax 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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