Duncan is a boy's name of Irish and Celtic origin meaning “brown and battle.” In 2024 it was given to 194 boys in the United States.
Duncan at a glance
Gender
Boy name
Origin
Irish & Celtic
Meaning
“brown and battle”
Pronunciation
/ˈdʌŋkən/
About the name Duncan
Duncan belongs to the Irish & Celtic tradition. Its meaning — “brown and battle” — is the sense carried by its Irish and Celtic roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page.
In the United States, Duncan first appears in Social Security records in 1880. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #378 in 1997, and in 2024 194 babies received the name — 21,032 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.