Dewey
- Pronunciation
- [De-wey]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Place-Name And Surname: Welsh Form Of David.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Dewey
Dewey is an English surname-turned-given-name, functioning as a Welsh-influenced form of David — from the Hebrew Dāwīḏ, meaning "beloved" — via the Welsh given name Dewi, which is the traditional Welsh form of David and the name of the patron saint of Wales. The transfer from surname to first name followed a common pattern of the late Victorian era, when surnames, place-names, and occupational names frequently crossed into the given-name register as markers of family heritage or civic pride.
Dewey's appearance in the US Social Security top-1000 is notably brief and concentrated. It first entered the top-1000 in 1898, peaked at #19 that same year, and last appeared in 1900 at rank #75 — a window of just three years. The name's sudden spike almost certainly reflects the enormous national attention on Admiral George Dewey following his celebrated victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, a common pattern in American naming history where military or political figures drive brief but intense naming fashions. It does not appear in the top-1000 records tracked here after 1900 — a marker of rarity rather than disuse in subsequent decades.
Recorded variants are Dewi — the original Welsh form — and Dewie. For parents drawn to short, vintage surname-names with Celtic underpinning, Dewey offers a distinctive option with genuine historical roots.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Dewey
US Popularity History (1898–1900)
Annual US births named Dewey by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1898 with 1,115 boys named Dewey (boy rank #19 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1900, ranked #75 for boys (345 US births). That's 56 places below its 1898 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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Compare Dewey to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Dewey against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).