Meaning and history
The meaning of Darren is not known with certainty. The spelling Daren was used by novelist Zane Grey for the central character in The Day of the Beast (1922), and Grey may have derived it from a rare Irish surname or formed it as a variant of Darrell. The name first drew wider public attention in the late 1950s through American actor Darren McGavin (1922–2006, born William Lyle Richardson) and became more popular in the 1960s through the character Darrin Stephens on the television series Bewitched.
20062006: 824 births, rank #361
2007: 876 births, rank #361
2008: 799 births, rank #384
2009: 765 births, rank #393
2010: 695 births, rank #407
20112011: 681 births, rank #415
2012: 667 births, rank #423
2013: 593 births, rank #468
2014: 569 births, rank #494
2015: 527 births, rank #542
20162016: 528 births, rank #548
2017: 463 births, rank #586
2018: 393 births, rank #653
2019: 374 births, rank #684
2020: 345 births, rank #718
20212021: 305 births, rank #803
2022: 284 births, rank #853
2023: 224 births, rank #977
2024: 240 births, rank #954
20252025: 187 births, rank #1,132
Darren rose from #978 to #954 for boys between 2023 and 2024. Its highest annual birth count came in 1965, with 5,938 births.