Donal
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ‘world mighty’; common Irish name, sometimes anglicised as Daniel
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dɑnəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Donal is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 43K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 53K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 324 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈12,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘world mighty’; common Irish name, sometimes anglicised as Daniel.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Donal 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 114K | — | Donal | 6 |
| IE Ireland | #149 | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | 17 | Donal | 144 |
| US United States | — | 2,507 | 1 in 133K | 2.5K | Donal | 324 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 5 | Donal | 161 |
| JP Japan | — | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 218K | — | Donal | 17 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 53K | 1 | Donal | 76 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 116 | 1 in 44K | 116 | — | — |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Donal | 29 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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)
Donal is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Irish: Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Donal, earlier Domhnall, from DONALD Old Celtic dubno ‘world’ + val ‘rule’. This was very popular in ancient Ireland, being borne by five High Kings of Ireland and three saints. The spelling Donall is also found.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Irish: Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Dónal , a simplified form of Domhnall (see DONALD ). The form Donall is also used.
as a word
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)
- Paul D. Harkinsb. 1904USnot in their usual nameUnited States general (1904-1984)
- Donal McLaughlinb. 1907USAmerican architect (1907–2009)
- Conor Cruise O'Brienb. 1917IEnot in their usual nameIrish politician, writer, historian and academic (1917-2008)
- Donal Henahanb. 1921USAmerican journalist (1921–2012)
- Donald O'Brienb. 1930FRnot in their usual nameIrish-French actor (1930-2003)
- Donal Donnellyb. 1931IEIrish theatre and film actor (1931-2010)
- Donal Gibsonb. 1958USAmerican actor
- Jimmy Walesb. 1966USnot in their usual nameco-founder of Wikipedia (born 1966)
- Donal Logueb. 1966CACanadian actor
- Donal MacIntyreb. 1966IEIrish investigative journalist
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 41 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.5K | #6,412 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 116 | #1,977 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1930 | 98 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1931 | 97 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1922 | 89 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1932 | 88 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1928 | 87 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1923 | 84 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1935 | 83 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1927 | 83 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1936 | 82 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1934 | 80 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name 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
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 Donal mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘world mighty’; common Irish name, sometimes anglicised as Daniel. Recorded by Irish first names.
- How do you pronounce Donal?
- A machine transcription gives /dɑnəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Donal a male or female name?
- Donal is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Donal?
- In the etymology graph, Donald, Don and Donnie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Donal have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 12 thousand people named Donal in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled donal.
- How common is the name Donal?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,507 people named Donal in 2020, about 1 in 133 thousand residents.
- How common is Donal compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Donal is the 149th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Donal?
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/donalThe 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, “Donal” — the 149th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.