The history of your name

The DONALD surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 11,763 2802 0.004 44
United States (1880 census) 2,013 2966 0.004 40
Change since 1880 +9750 +164 0 +4
Other Countries
Australia 1,979 819 0.012 121
United Kingdom 6,828 920 0.015 149
Top States for DONALD by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 917 446 0.032 322
Florida 737 2680 0.005 46
California 708 4026 0.002 21
Texas 707 3120 0.003 34
Michigan 667 1603 0.007 67
Top States for DONALD by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 917 446 0.032 322
South Carolina 582 1088 0.015 145
Alabama 560 1251 0.013 126
Louisiana 330 1827 0.007 74
Tennessee 383 2117 0.007 67

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called DONALD live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called DONALD represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called DONALD in Mississippi than any other state, but you are more likely to find a DONALD by picking someone at random in Mississippi than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of DONALD

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From given name or forename

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the DONALD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the DONALD surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of DONALD in the USA

Classification Total Percent
Mixed Race 203 1.73
White (Hispanic) 118 1
Native American/Alaskan 108 0.92
Asian/Pacific 73 0.62
White (Caucasian) 6,452 54.85
Black/African American 4,808 40.87

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the DONALD surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of DONALD in historical publications

DONALD. A well-known northern personal name, whence Donalds, Mac Donald, Donaldson, Donnison, Donkin. Gaelic etymologists derive the name from " Donhm,"i.e., "brown-eyed."

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to DONALD

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as DONALD.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for DONALD

The following words are slight variants of DONALD that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.