Douglas
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ‘Person from Douglas’, a Scottish locality and clan home; literally ‘dark stream’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʌɡləs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Douglas is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 99th most common given name.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 571(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 604
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 672
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)
- #235 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 618 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 571 (inferred from the name graph)
383,164 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, 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)
‘Person from Douglas’, a Scottish locality and clan home; literally ‘dark stream’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Douglas, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Douglas 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 | #99 | 383,164 | 1 in 868 | 383K | Douglas | 618 |
| BR Brazil | — | 258,798 | 1 in 818 | 267K | — | 12 |
| GB United Kingdom | #127 | ≈98,000 est. | ≈1 in 672 | 13 | Douglas | 292 |
| EG Egypt | #619 | ≈65,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Douglas | 26 |
| CA Canada | #93 | ≈62,000 est. | ≈1 in 604 | 2 | Douglas | 291 |
| NZ New Zealand | #81 | ≈8,600 est. | ≈1 in 571 | 15 | Douglas | 137 |
| SG Singapore | #66 | ≈8,000 est. | ≈1 in 780 | — | Douglas | 96 |
383,164 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; 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)
Douglas 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 the Scottish place-name Douglas, originally 'dark stream'
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, From the Lanarkshire place-name Douglas, from Gaelic dubh + glais, ‘black stream’; first of the family on record c. 12th century.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, A place name from Gaelic dubh ‘dark’ + glas ‘water/stream’; first record William de Duglas in charters c. 1199–early 13th c.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from Douglas, Lanarkshire, ‘the black water’ (Gael dubh, glas); first attested William de Duglas 1175–99 Black (Kelso)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In French, Scottish Gaelic surname-name, from dubh ‘dark’ + glas ‘stream’/‘water’
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Douglas MacArthurb. 1880USUnited States Army general in WWI, WWII and Korea (1880–1964)
- Edgar Douglas Adrianb. 1889GBEnglish electrophysiologist (1889-1977)
- John Douglas Cockcroftb. 1897GBBritish physicist (1897–1967)
- Ray Bradburyb. 1920USnot in their usual nameAmerican author and screenwriter (1920–2012)
- Jim Morrisonb. 1943USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and poet; lead vocalist of The Doors (1943–1971)
- Rick Husbandb. 1957USnot in their usual nameAmerican astronaut (1957-2003)
- Douglas McGrathb. 1958USAmerican actor and director
- Dwayne Johnsonb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor and professional wrestler (born 1972)
- Adam Driverb. 1983USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1983)
- Pattinsonb. 1986GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor (born 1986)
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 112 sources across 52 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 383K | #122 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 267K | #194 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 259K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 258K | #120 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 3.1K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.2K | #120 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 359 | #122 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 308 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 29 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2024 | 15 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 13 | #290 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 2 | #1,520 |
Reference works 8
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Douglas mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Person from Douglas’, a Scottish locality and clan home; literally ‘dark stream’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Douglas?
- In the etymology graph, Doug is a form of the same name in other languages.
- Is Douglas a male or female name?
- Douglas 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.
- How do you pronounce Douglas?
- A machine transcription gives /dʌɡləs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Douglas have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 383 thousand people named Douglas, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled douglas.
- How common is the name Douglas?
- In the United States, the national register counted 383,164 people named Douglas in 2020, about 1 in 868 residents.
- How common is Douglas compared with other names?
- In the United States, Douglas is the 99th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Douglas?
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/douglasThe 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, “Douglas” — the 99th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.