Humanverse

Donald vs Donna

American parents have registered 1,420,387 Donalds since 1880, against 833,874 Donnas. Donald is still ahead, with 395 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Donald against Donna, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Donald Donna

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Donald for 133 years and Donna for 13 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Donald Donna
Total US births 1,420,387833,874
Most in one year 30,51836,539
Babies in 2025 39598
Estimated living today 650,000594,000
Median age today 6667
Peak year 19341959
Best rank 6th boys5th girls
Rank in 2025 690th1,962nd
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 5,563 / 1,414,824831,641 / 2,233

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Donald Donna
New Zealand 2,4057,054
Scotland 2,5005,952
Ireland 5153,502
France 1,120710
England and Wales 413445

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Donald and Donna.