Dolores
Masculine · “sorrows”
Dolores is given to girls far more often — 211,440 girls against 1,336 boys since 1880. See Dolores as a girl name
Dolores is the Latin word for pains, and the singular of it is still in use in one place: medicine. The four classical signs of inflammation are redness, heat, swelling and pain, and the fourth of them is this word, listed in Latin in textbooks that have otherwise been in English for two hundred years.
How old is the name Dolores?
Dolores first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Dolores alive today was born around 1935, making them about 90 years old. About 400 people named Dolores are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Dolores most popular?
Dolores peaked in 1930, reaching #710 nationally. See the whole 1930 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Latin plural noun meaning pains or sorrows to Dolores
Our story of Dolores
The short form is the most successful cut in Spanish naming. Take the middle syllable of the name, double the consonant around it, and the result is Lola: three letters that retain nothing of the original except one sound, are said in every language without instruction, and have been carried by dancers, singers and characters in half the novels of the nineteenth century. Nobody meeting a Lola would guess the name behind it, and a great many Lolas have not been Doloreses at all, because the short form left home and became a name in its own right. The full name is heavy and specific; the short one is weightless. Families have been choosing both at once for a century.
Meaning
sorrows
The Latin noun covers both bodily pain and grief, and the name is its plural. The reading is settled. English has kept the two senses in separate words — dolour for grief, and the untranslated Latin in the medical list — so the single word behind the name has no single English equivalent any more.
How the name formed
- A Latin plural noun meaning pains or sorrows
- A Spanish devotional name from a title of the Virgin
- Carried across Spanish-speaking America
- Lola cut from the middle and set loose
Related forms: Dolores · Addolorata · Dores
Pronouncing Dolores
duh-LOR-us
Three syllables with the stress in the middle. Spanish sounds the final s clearly and English tends to swallow it, which is the main difference between the two versions of the name.
Nicknames for Dolores
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 193077 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #710reached in 1930
- Change vs 1989
- −16.7%5 in 1992, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Dolores in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Dolores in Spanish — same name
- Addolorata in Italian — related form
- Dores in Portuguese — related form
Doloress among us
people named Dolores are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Dolores sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Lola comes out of it as one of the most portable short names there is.
- It is used unchanged across the whole Spanish-speaking world.
- The meaning is exact and takes one word to give.
- The meaning is sorrows, which many families weigh carefully.
- It is strongly associated with the early twentieth century in America.
- The spelling appears on the register for both sexes in small numbers.
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Dolores
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Doloress are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 400 people named Dolores are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Dolores in 2025?
- Dolores is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Dolores with classmates?
- Dolores will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More D names
The most-given names starting with D, all years combined.
David#35 · Daniel#22 · Donald#690 · Dennis#707 · Douglas#807 · Dylan#41 · Danny#628 · Dale#1409
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Dolores? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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