Ladonna
Feminine · “the lady”
Ladonna says lady twice. Donna is the Italian for a lady, from the Latin domina — mistress of a household — and it became an English name in the twentieth century without anyone much noticing what it meant. Putting La in front of it adds the article that Italian, French and Spanish all use, so the name reads as the the lady, which nobody intended and which is entirely charming.
How old is the name Ladonna?
Ladonna first appears in US birth records in 1903 — 122 years ago. The typical Ladonna alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 17,000 people named Ladonna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ladonna most popular?
Ladonna peaked in 1968, reaching #377 nationally. Today it ranks #13208, 12,831 places below that high. See the whole 1968 chart.
Ladonna appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From domina to Ladonna
The story of Ladonna
Donna entered American use in the 1920s and became one of the great names of the mid-century, peaking in the 1950s. The La- prefix was doing steady work in American naming across the same decades, attaching to bases of every kind. Ladonna is that combination and its record runs alongside Donna's own, peaking a little later. It is one of the tidier prefixed names, because the base is a real word in a real language and the prefix happens to be that language's article.
Meaning
the lady
Donna is the Italian noun for a woman or lady, from the Latin domina, the feminine of dominus. La is the definite article in Italian, Spanish and French. American naming used La- as a productive prefix without regard to what it meant in any of those languages, so the doubling here is an accident — but it is an accurate one.
How the name formed
- domina
- donna
- Donna
- Ladonna
Related forms: Donna · Domina
Pronouncing Ladonna
luh-DON-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. The first syllable is light and quick. Italian would say la DON-na as two words with a fuller first vowel, but this is an American name and the prefix has been absorbed.
Nicknames for Ladonna
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
- 1903
- Most girls named
- 1968584 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #377reached in 1968
- Change vs 2020
- +20.0%6 in 2025, from 5
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.
Ladonna in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Donna in Italian — related form
- Domina in Latin — related form
Ladonnas among us
people named Ladonna are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 267,878 born in 2025 was named Ladonna
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Garnet test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ladonna's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Garnet climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Garnet's path sketches the road Ladonna is walking now.
Ladonna sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Ladonna beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ladonna in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The base is a complete standing name, so it shortens cleanly.
- The meaning is genuine, if accidental, and takes two words to give.
- Three open syllables that sit well after almost any surname.
- LaDonna, La Donna and Ladona all appear in records, so the spelling has to be given.
- It belongs firmly to a mid-century American generation and reads that way.
- The prefix marks the name culturally for some readers, which is worth deciding about in advance.
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What they receive
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Ladonna
Feminine · #13208 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ladonnas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 17,000 people named Ladonna are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ladonna in 2025?
- Ladonna ranks #13208 among US girl names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ladonna?
- About 1 in every 267,878 US girls born in 2025 was named Ladonna — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ladonna with classmates?
- Ladonna will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ladonna
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
John#13208 · Vinnie#13208 · Margery#13208 · Jossie#13208 · Tressa#13208 · Erie#13208 · Bernadine#13208 · Euna#13208
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ladonna? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Ladonna and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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