Decimus

← Back to The Colonial Americas

Boy · Latin

Decimus

Say it: DESS-ih-mus

Try it with your surname

Meaning

Latin for 'tenth'.

Certainscholars agree on this meaning.

A rare Roman praenomen that some Georgian and Victorian English families revived for a tenth child.

Its wave through time

Rare in the records

In the United States

024618801900192019401960198020002020Peak 2018per million babies of that sex
  • 59 babies given this name since 2006
  • At its height in 2018, about 1 in 226,300 boys
  • 5 babies in 2020

Through the ages

  1. Ancient Rome750 BC to AD 476
  2. The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
  3. Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914

Used by

LatinEnglish

Famous bearers

  • Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar's assassins
  • Decimus Burton, English architect

Names worth a look

Where this comes from

  • Roman literature and history (Livy, Cicero, Tacitus and others)
  • Parish baptism registers
  • United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source

Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.

Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.