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Dakota

134,576 recorded births · active 1915–2025

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Living-age distribution

The median living Dakota is 25. If you meet a Dakota, there's about a 70% chance they're between 10 and 32 years old.

Popularity arc

Peak Dakota: 1995. Down 69% from peak.

Projected: the dashed 10-year forecast (Holt damped-trend exponential smoothing, fit to recent years), with a shaded 95% interval.

Gender balance

68.9% male, 31.1% female.

68.9%male
Male68.9%
Female31.1%

Among males: median age 27 (15–33). Among females: median age 18 (6–30).

Rarity

Dakota ranks #560 out of 105,966 names ever recorded by the SSA.

99.5%more common
Commonness rank#560of 105,966

Name neighbors

People named Dakota have popularity-curve siblings named:

KianaTylarTannerKatarinaYasmeen

Geographic fingerprint

Dakotas are 1.3x more common in the South than the national average.

Under-indexed
Over-indexed
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Predictive modeling

Three statistical models, all fit to Dakota's own SSA history plus the historical behavior of every other name in the dataset.

Peak popularity prediction

Dakota's modeled peak was #87 in 1995 — its trend isn't projected to beat that.

Top 1000 Reached in 1986
Top 500 Reached in 1990
Top 100 Reached in 1995
Top 50
0% chance
Top 10
0% chance

Projects the trend forward, then converts share into rank using this year's popularity distribution.

This forecasts Dakota's share of births by fitting a damped-trend model to its last 68 years of data and projecting 10 years forward with a widening uncertainty band. Each projected share is then translated into a rank by comparing it against 2025's actual name-popularity distribution — so the model implicitly assumes the overall shape of that distribution doesn't shift much over the forecast window. Its trend is projected to stay below its historic best over the next 10 years, so the model treats 1995 as its peak. Milestone probabilities come from how much of each year's uncertainty band clears that milestone's rank, combined across years as if they were independent — which slightly overstates the odds for names sitting right at a threshold, since a good year is usually followed by another good year rather than an independent coin flip.

Name life-cycle stage

A rule-based classifier over recent growth, momentum, and peak proximity.

Growing

Dakota's popularity has been gently rising in recent years without yet approaching its historic peak.

30
years since peak
→ stable
overall trend
~41 years
estimated time left in top 1000

Popularity survival model

Once a name reaches a rank tier, how long does it typically stay there before falling out?

Built from a Kaplan-Meier survival curve: every historical run any name has ever had above this tier, with runs still ongoing today counted as still in progress rather than as an exit.

Dakota isn't currently in the Top 100 tier. Estimated chance of entering it in the forecast window: 0%.

If Dakota enters Top 100, chance it's still there after:

71%
5 years
63%
10 years
48%
20 years

Names that do enter Top 100 have historically stayed a median of ~19 years. Based on 668 historical Top 100 runs across every name in the dataset.