Proper noun

1. for someone who came from Denmark, also a variant of Dean.
   • 1913 Harry Leon Wilson, Bunker Bean, BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008, ISBN 0554347148, page 13

     Often he wrote good ones on casual slips and fancied them his; names like Trevellyan or Montressor or Delancey, with musical prefixes; or a good, short, beautiful, but dignified name like "Gordon Dane". He liked that one. It suggested something.

2. transferred from the surname, or from the ethnic term Dane ( like Scott or Norman ).
   • 1977 Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds, Gramercy Books 1998, ISBN 0517201658, pages 432-433

     "I'm going to call him Dane."

     "What a queer name! Why? Is it an O'Neill family name? I thought you were finished with the O'Neills."

     "It's got nothing to do with Luke. This is his name, no one else's. - - - I called Justine Justine simply because I liked the name, and I'm calling Dane Dane for the same reason."

     "Well, it does have a nice ring to it," Fee admitted.