Dušan A. Popović was born on in the village of Volujak (now part of Dragovo) in the Levač region. His father Aleksa Popović, originally from Vojvodina, was orphaned during the Hungarian Revolution and was adopted as a three-year-old by the Avakumović family in Belgrade in 1848. He went on to become a teacher, and taught in several places, stationed in Volujak at the time of Dušan's birth. Dušan was the seventh child of Aleksa and Jevica (Mileva) Popović.