Donald
Top 1000
About Donald
Donald has been used for centuries in Scotland, where the Macdonald clan is one of the most ancient and where there have been six early Scottish kings by that name. Donald was a Top 20 name throughout most of the early twentieth century.
But first there was the quacking Donald Duck, introduced in 1934, to affect its image, and then there was The Donald Trump, leaving it drained of much baby appeal. Trump's runs to presidency didn't save Donald's decline on the baby name charts: over the last decade it has fallen around 200 places in the US, and a recent year saw it rank at #672 when it was given to around 400 boys.
Across the pond, it is now out of favor in Scotland too and the latest count revealed just 16 boys were called Donald in England and Wales. Nicknames Donnie and Donny preferred, given to around 60 boys collectively, with the -ie spelling in the Top 1000, distant enough from the Trump association to work there.
Aside from Donald Sutherland, most contemporary real and fictive Donalds go by nicknames — as in Donny Osmond, Donnie Wahlberg, Don Rickles and Don Draper. More promising and more authentically Celtic sounding is Donal, which is quite commonly used in Ireland, or surname cousins Donnelly or Donovan.
As of October 2026, Donald ranked #690 in US births in 2025 SSA, peaked at #6 in 1934, Nameberry popularity #653.
Editor's take: The name Donald is a boy's name of Scottish origin meaning "proud chief".
Popularity & trends
Data table
| Year | US rank | Births | Per million |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | #419 | 738 | 384.2 |
| 2015 | #440 | 696 | 363.1 |
| 2016 | #489 | 625 | 329.3 |
| 2017 | #486 | 603 | 325.8 |
| 2018 | #524 | 541 | 297.9 |
| 2019 | #548 | 513 | 285.9 |
| 2020 | #610 | 449 | 260.1 |
| 2021 | #595 | 468 | 267.5 |
| 2022 | #679 | 402 | 230.2 |
| 2023 | #658 | 415 | 242.6 |
| 2024 | #672 | 405 | 235.1 |
| 2025 | #690 | 395 | 231.3 |
World rankings
Similar names
These 20 names were selected by our users looking for other names like Donald.
Famous Donalds
- Donald I
III, Kings of Scots
- Donald Henry Rumsfeld
13th and 21st U.S. Secretary of Defense
- Donald Franciszek Tusk
former Prime Minister of Poland; President of the European Council
- Donald Adeosun Faison
American actor
- Donald McNichol Sutherland
American actor; father of actor Keifer Sutherland
- Donald Henry Pleasence
English actor
- Donald Edmond "Donnie" Wahlberg
American actor
- Isaac Donald "Don" Everly
American singer,songwriter of The Everly Brothers
- Donald Driver
American NFL football player
- Donald Mckinley Glover
American actor
- Donald "Duck" Dunn
American bass guitarist
- Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle
American actor
- Donald Eugene "Don" Gibson
American country music songwriter
- Donald Cargill
Scottish Covenanter preacher
- Donald A. Glaser
winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
- Donald J. Cram
winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- Donald Marland Hewlett
English actor
- Donald Hawkins
American NFL football player
- Donald George Bradman
Australian cricketer
- Donald James Yarmy
birth name of Don Adams, American actor
- Donald Tai Loy "Don" Ho
American pop singer
- Donald Clark "Don" Kirshner
American music publisher and producer
- Donald Virgil "Don" Bluth
American animator and director
- Donald Orlando "Duck" Bailey
American jazz drummer
- Donald Maynard Brashear
American,Canadian ice hockey player
- Donald Zackary "Zack" Greinke
American baseball pitcher
- Donald Cortez "Don" Cornelius
American TV host
- George William "Donald" Crisp
Anglo,American actor
- Donald Campbell Dewar
1st Minister of Scotland
- Donald Allan "Don" Dunstan
35th Premier of South Australia
- Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond
American singer and actor
- Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture "Donald" Byrd
American jazz and R&B trumpeter
- Donald Tsang (Yam
kuen), 2nd Chief Executive of Hong Kong
- Donald John Trump
45th U.S. president
- Donald Sterling
American businessman, and former basketball team owner
- Donald James Matthew Blakeslee
American WWII flying ace
- Donald Ervin Knuth
American computer scientist
- Donald John Trump Jr
son of President Donald Trump
- Kriss Donald (b. 1988)
15 year old white Scottish boy who was kidnapped and murdered because he was white in 2004
Donald in pop culture
- Donald Duck
Disney character
- Donald "Don" Draper
main character on TV's "Mad Men"
- Donald "Dock" O'Kelly
also known as Father Daniel Flynn, character in film "Bad Times at the El Royale"
- Detective Donald "Don" Flack Jr.
character on TV's "CSI: New York"
- Donald "Ducky" Mallard
character on TV's "NCIS"
- Donald Ronald "Donny" Douglas
character on TV's "Frasier"
- Donald
Capuchin monkey in movie "Zookeeper"
- Donald "Donnie" Stevens
character on TV's "Even Stevens"
- Donald "Don" Eppes
main character on TV's "Numb3rs"
- Donald Ressler
character on TV's "The Blacklist"
- McDonald's
restaurant chain
- Donald Davenport
character on TV's "Lab Rats"
- Donald Pierce
character in "X,Men"
- Donald
one of the main four characters from Platoon of Power Squadron
- Donald Leslie "Don" Orville
Police officer on TV show "3rd Rock from the Sun"
- Captain Donald "Don" Cragen
character on TV shows "Law and Order" and "Law and Order: SVU"
Variations & nicknames
- DonallIrish
- DonyaUkrainian
- BogdanUkrainian
- DomhnallGaelic
- DonaltNorwegian
- BohdanUkrainian
- DonalIrish
- DonaldoSpanish