Darling
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a medieval personal name and nickname meaning ‘beloved one’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɑɹlɪŋ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Darling is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 13K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 15K
- USUnited States1 in 18K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 438 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.1K (inferred from the name graph)
18,879 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
North Korea, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a medieval personal name and nickname meaning ‘beloved one’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Darling counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 18,879 | 1 in 18K | 19K | Darling | 438 |
| IN India | — | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 203K | — | Darling | 47 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈5,200 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Darling | 194 |
| KP North Korea | #775 | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.1K | — | Darling | 3 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 1 | Darling | 155 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Darling | 70 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Darling | 53 |
18,879 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Darling is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, From Old English dēorling, ‘son of a noble family’; first recorded as Waldevus Darling or Derlyng at Roxburgh c.1338.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from OE dīerling, dēorling ‘darling’, ‘one dearly loved’; first attested Oter Dirlinges sunu 1100–30 OEByn (D)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Often used as an affectionate term of address: a person who is very dear to one.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, beloved one, a deriv. of dear dear, beloved (see Dear i).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, beloved one, a deriv. of deor dear, beloved (see Dear i).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Ralph Darlingb. 1772IEBritish Army general (1772-1858)
- William S. Darlingb. 1882USHungarian-American art director
- Jean Darlingb. 1922USAmerican actress (1922–2015)
- Clifford Darlingb. 1922BSBahamian politician (1922-2011)
- David Darlingb. 1941USAmerican musician
- Jennifer Darlingb. 1946USAmerican actress (born 1946)
- Alistair Darlingb. 1953GBBritish Labour Party politician (1953–2023)
- Ron Darlingb. 1960USAmerican baseball player
- Bobby Darlingb. 1976INIndian Bollywood actress celebrity, reality show participant, and model
- Gia Darlingb. 1977USAmerican pornographic film actress, pornographic film director, and businesswoman
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 60 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.6K | #7,819 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 276 | #7,819 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 47 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2023 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,333 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Darling mean, and where does it come from?
- from a medieval personal name and nickname meaning ‘beloved one’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Darling?
- In the United States, the national register counted 18,879 people named Darling in 2010, about 1 in 18 thousand residents.
- How common is Darling compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Darling is the 775th most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Darling?
- A machine transcription gives /dɑɹlɪŋ/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Darling?
- In the etymology graph, DearLing is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Darling have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 19 thousand people named Darling, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled darling.
What do you want to know about Darling?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/darlingThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Darling” — the 775th most common surname in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.