Donna
Masculine · “lady”
Donna is given to girls far more often — 831,641 girls against 2,233 boys since 1880. See Donna as a girl name
Donna is unusual among names in never having belonged to anybody first. Most words that became names passed through a person: a saint, a character, a family. This one went straight from being an ordinary word for a woman to being a name for one, with nobody in between.
How old is the name Donna?
Donna first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Donna alive today was born around 1956, making them about 69 years old. About 1,400 people named Donna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Donna most popular?
Donna peaked in 1960, reaching #862 nationally. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From domina to Donna
The story of Donna
The Latin word behind it described a specific and powerful position. A domina ran the household: she had authority over the slaves, the stores, the accounts and the domestic religion, and in law she was the counterpart of the man who owned the property rather than a member of his staff. The word is built directly on the one for a house, and it names the person in charge of it. That is a considerably harder-edged thing than the modern softness of the name suggests. Somewhere between the Roman household and the American nursery a word for the woman who held the keys became a word for a nice girl, and nothing in the spelling records the change.
Meaning
lady
The Italian common noun, descended from a Latin word for the mistress of a household. It is a title and a form of address in Italian rather than a name, which is why Italians do not generally use it as one.
How the name formed
- domina
- donna
- Donna
Related forms: Donna · Doña · Dona
Pronouncing Donna
DON-uh
Two syllables with the stress at the front. Italian says it the same way, which is unusual for a borrowed word and makes the name stable across languages.
Nicknames for Donna
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
- 1924
- Most boys named
- 196078 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #862reached in 1960
- Change vs 1990
- −25.0%6 in 1993, from 8
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.
Donna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Donna in Italian — same name
- Doña in Spanish — related form
- Dona in Portuguese — related form
Donnas among us
people named Donna 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
Donna 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
- It is short, warm and completely settled in sound.
- The meaning is dignified and easy to explain without any etymology.
- It has been in wide use long enough to be familiar to everyone.
- Its peak was so large and so concentrated that the name dates its bearer immediately.
- In Italian it is an ordinary noun rather than a name, which travelers will notice.
- The record holds a few boys as well, and the boy is much the smaller side.
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Donna
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Donnas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Donna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Donna in 2025?
- Donna is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Donna with classmates?
- Donna 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 Donna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Donna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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