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It just so happens I just researched this name. It is a really unusual example because it has returned to popularity way sooner than is normal for a name which had dropped away relatively recently, at least in the USA.

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If look at Dean's popularity curve, it peaked in 1961 and then plummetted in use between about 1966 and 1978. It sort of plateaued then, and starts to inch up in 2006, just after "Supernatural" premiered. So the people on this thread who have mentioned Dean Winchester are not at all unusual -- he obviously was such a popular character he did almost the impossible, revive a name which had fallen away and where the average bearer of it was in his early 40s. Normally names that fall away like Dean did don't revive until the average bearer is closer to 90! If you look at the chart on this site you will see Dean has risen rather slowly and still isn't as common as it was in the 1960s, but that it has definitely come back so much so soon is still quite amazing. I never watched this show at all myself, but Dean Winchester must have had an amazing appeal to people in the "new parents" generation for this to have happened.

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This means of course that whatever an individual thinks of Dean, the image of the name at the moment for younger generations must be dominated by Dean Winchester. (I'm so old I still think of Dean Martin and Dean Jones!) :)

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I have an acquaintance who had his first child, a boy named Dean, about 18 months ago and was quite surprised the baby had that name. Now I know why. :)

This was my dad's middle name, and while that's a nice association, I always thought my grandparents' name choices were so extremely dated to the specific moment they were having children. I could never see it used on a child today.

I actually quite like Dean. I would especially use it as a middle name, it has a nice meaning, and James Dean isn’t a bad association. Nice classic and handsome sound.

I adore it, but that's probably in part due to my ALL time favorites series character, Dean Winchester, who I simply LOVE, along with the actor. ;P It also brings to mind two other notable bearers that I quite enjoy; actors: Dean Winters and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. But it's a good, strong name itself. It's overwhelmingly simple, underused, but not unheard of, and very versitile in terms of age; to a cute little boy to an elderly man. I seriously contemplated on using it, but decided not to, only because it would have sounded horrible with the other name that I have already picked out for a son. (Meaning, Dean would have been for a second son.) But I suppose I could consider it for a middle name, if the right combo striked me. (: