Donna
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Of recent origin (not found before the 1920s)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Donna is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Singapore it is the 24th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 300(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 307
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 338
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Donna itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #142 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 617 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 300 (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,100,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
Of recent origin (not found before the 1920s). It is derived from the Italian vocabulary word donna ‘lady’ (compare Madonna), but it is now also used as a feminine form of Donald.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Donna 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 | — | ≈4,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 344 | — | Donna | 47 |
| US United States | #58 | 635,065 | 1 in 524 | 635K | Donna | 617 |
| GB United Kingdom | #73 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 338 | 79 | Donna | 318 |
| CA Canada | #50 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 373 | 1 | Donna | 295 |
| IT Italy | #135 | ≈99,000 est. | ≈1 in 627 | 2 | Donna | 67 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 46,271as Danna | 1 in 365 | 46K | — | 15 |
| IE Ireland | #42 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 300 | listed | Donna | 122 |
| NZ New Zealand | #56 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 307 | 11 | Donna | 147 |
| SG Singapore | #24 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 419 | — | Donna | 68 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); INEC — civil registry names; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Donna 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, A lady, especially a noblewoman; the title given to a lady in Italy.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, do latim domina, 'senhora', reduzido no latim medieval a domna
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In French, It. donna « dame, femme »; used as a female given name.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, A lady; short form of Madonna.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Italian, Variante di Donno
as a nameDizionario dei cognomi italiani
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)
- Donna Reedb. 1921USAmerican film and television actress
- Donna Millsb. 1940USAmerican actress
- Donna Harawayb. 1944USAmerican philosopher, scholar in the field of science and technology studies
- Donna Karanb. 1948USAmerican fashion designer (born 1948)
- Donna Summerb. 1948USAmerican singer (1948–2012)
- Donna Pescowb. 1954USAmerican actress, director
- Paige O'Harab. 1956USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Donna Stricklandb. 1959CACanadian physicist, Nobel laurate
- Donna Murphyb. 1959USAmerican actress, singer
- Donna Tarttb. 1963USAmerican writer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 100 sources across 51 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 635K | #63 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 563 | #63 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 98 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1995 | 11 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 8 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1993 | 6 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,418 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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
- Where does the name Donna come from?
- Of recent origin (not found before the 1920s). It is derived from the Italian vocabulary word donna ‘lady’ (compare Madonna), but it is now also used as a feminine form of Donald. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Donna a male or female name?
- Donna is a female 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 Donna?
- In the etymology graph, Dona, LaDonna and Donella are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Donna have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.1 million people named Donna in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled donna.
- What does the name Donna mean?
- Recorded meaning: Of recent origin (not found before the 1920s).
- How common is the name Donna?
- In the United States, the national register counted 635,065 people named Donna in 2020, about 1 in 524 residents.
- How common is Donna compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Donna is the 24th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Donna?
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/donnaThe 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, “Donna” — the 24th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.