Denver
- Pronunciation
- [Den-ver]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Variant Of The Surname Danvers Meaning From Anvers. Capital City Of The State Of Colorado In The USA.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Denver
Denver is a surname-derived given name rooted in English geography, with the most commonly cited etymology tracing it to a variant of the surname Danvers — itself potentially linked to Anvers (Antwerp) or to Old English place-name elements. As a place name, Denver is of course most immediately associated with the capital of Colorado, a city that rose to prominence during the 19th-century American West's mining and railroad booms and that carries strong associations with wide skies, mountain proximity, and frontier energy. Place-name transfers of this kind — using a city or geographic name as a given name — are a robust American naming tradition, giving children a sense of rootedness to a particular landscape or cultural identity.
Denver as a given name carries a distinctly American feel: western, open, and friendly, with the two-syllable structure and strong consonant frame of many successful American surname-names. It sits comfortably alongside names like Dallas, Austin, and Brooks — all place-rooted names that project geographic pride and a certain rugged confidence. The name has shown real staying power in the current decade, suggesting parents are drawn to its combination of familiarity and American specificity.
Denver first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and reached its peak rank of #481 in 2022, with 644 births that year. It has held consistently near that level — #510 in 2023 and #486 in 2024 with 633 births — demonstrating continued momentum across more than two decades and over 4,902 top-1000 births tracked. This upward recent arc makes Denver one of the more actively rising place-names in current American use.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Denver
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Denver by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 644 boys named Denver (boy rank #481 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #518 for boys (578 US births). That's 37 places below its 2022 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 Denver 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 Denver the strongest states are Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arkansas | #283 | 127 |
| 2 | Mississippi | #300 | 79 |
| 3 | West Virginia | #307 | 25 |
| 4 | Louisiana | #307 | 181 |
| 5 | Oklahoma | #339 | 142 |
| 6 | Tennessee | #361 | 203 |
| 7 | Missouri | #378 | 157 |
| 8 | Ohio | #400 | 258 |
| 9 | Georgia | #406 | 259 |
| 10 | Indiana | #427 | 154 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | #974 | 136 |
| 2 | Washington | #864 | 26 |
| 3 | New Jersey | #848 | 35 |
| 4 | New York | #805 | 101 |
| 5 | Colorado | #774 | 28 |
| 6 | Arizona | #710 | 50 |
| 7 | Illinois | #703 | 97 |
| 8 | Minnesota | #690 | 27 |
| 9 | Virginia | #629 | 91 |
| 10 | Florida | #627 | 204 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Denver in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Denver?
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 Denver to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Denver 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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