Denver is the name of Colorado's capital, which honors the territorial governor James W. Denver; his surname comes from a village in Norfolk, England, whose Old English name means "crossing of the Danes" or "Danes' passage". As a first name it belongs to the group of Western place names like Dallas and Austin, and the singer John Denver gave it a folksy ring. Denver re-entered the US top 1000 in 2015 and has climbed from number 899 to number 518 in 2025, with a peak of number 480 in 2022.