Donnie
Donnie is a boy's name that peaked in 1952, when it was the 156th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 1,793rd. About 45,000 Donnies are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 63.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Donnie boys named Donnie
Girls and boys called Donnie
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Donnie crossed from girls to boys in 1928, and has stayed there for 98 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 100% boys, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 136 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 68,060
- Estimated living today
- 45,000
- Median age today
- 63
- Peak year
- 1952
- Best rank
- 156th
- Rank in 2025
- 1,793rd
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 7,132 / 60,928
How old the living Donnies are
born that year still alive today
Of the 68,060 babies given the name since 1880, about 45,000 are alive — 65 in every hundred. Roughly 1,900 of them are children and 21,000 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1962 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Donnies
- Donnie Yen (born 1963)Hong Kong actor, film director and martial artist
- Donnie Wahlberg (born 1969)American musician, singer, producer and actor
- Donnie Van Zant (born 1952)American singer
- Donnie Nietes (born 1982)Filipino boxer
- Donnie Dunagan (born 1934)actor and United States Marine
- Donnie McGrath (born 1984)Irish basketball player
- Donnie Hamzik (born 1956)American drummer
- Donnie Freeman (born 1944)American basketball player
People named Donnie with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Donnie is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Donnie is most concentrated in Kentucky (4.4×), Arkansas (4.0×), South Carolina (3.5×), North Carolina (3.5×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1952
The most popular boys’ names the year Donnie peaked:
Donnie elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Donnie | 458 | 754th |
| Scotland boys | Donnie | 92 | 426th |
| France boys | Donnie | 30 | 4,807th |
| Ireland boys | Donnie | 19 | 509th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Related names
Donnie against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.