Ronald
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Gaelic Raonull, from Old Norse Rognvaldr, meaning 'counsel-rule'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹɑnəld/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ronald 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 48th most common given name.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 315(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 368
- SGSingapore≈1 in 368
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)
- #118 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 617 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 315 (inferred from the name graph)
689,843 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)
- GaelicRaonull(measured from records)
- Old NorseRognvaldr(measured from records)
From Gaelic Raonull, from Old Norse Rognvaldr, meaning 'counsel-rule'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Ronald, 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)
Ronald 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 | #48 | 689,843 | 1 in 482 | 689K | Ronald | 617 |
| PH Philippines | #41 | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 375 | — | Ronald | 172 |
| GB United Kingdom | #75 | ≈170,000 est. | ≈1 in 376 | listed | Ronald | 280 |
| IT Italy | #128 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 588 | listed | Ronald | 78 |
| EG Egypt | #448 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 985 | — | Ronald | 35 |
| CA Canada | #51 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 368 | 3 | Ronald | 272 |
| SG Singapore | #20 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 368 | — | Ronald | 115 |
| NZ New Zealand | #55 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 315 | — | Ronald | 108 |
689,843 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; 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)
Ronald 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 French, Scottish/English form of Reginald; from Germanic 'counsel' + 'rule'.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, Scottish equivalent of Reynold, from ON Rqgnvaldr via Olr Ragnall and Gael Raonull; first attested John Rannald 1463 Black
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In Irish, Norse name from Régnvaldr, via Scottish Gaelic Raonuli; still used in modern Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
From the Old Norse personal name Rognvaldr (see Ranald). This name was regularly used in the Middle Ages in northern England and Scotland, where Scandinavian influence was strong. It is now widespread throughout the English-speaking world. Short form: Ron. Pet form: Ronnie. poem Roisin Dubh,; in it the name is used as a figurative allusion to the Irish nation.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A male given name from the Germanic languages.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Ronald Rossb. 1857GBBritish doctor, Nobel laureate, writer, and artist (1857–1932)
- Ronald Fisherb. 1890GBBritish statistician, evolutionary biologist and geneticist (1890–1962)
- Ronald Colmanb. 1891GBBritish actor (1891–1958)
- J. R. R. Tolkienb. 1892GBnot in their usual nameEnglish writer and philologist (1892–1973)
- Ronald Reaganb. 1911USpresident of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and actor (1911–2004)
- Ron Paulb. 1935USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (born 1935)
- Ronald Venetiaanb. 1936SRSurinamese politician (1936–2025)
- Merle Haggardb. 1937USnot in their usual nameAmerican country music songwriter, singer, and musician (1937–2016)
- Ron DeSantisb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (born 1978)
- Ronald Araújob. 1999UYUruguayan footballer
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 129 sources across 67 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 689K | #52 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 598 | #52 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 438 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 15 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 3 | #1,147 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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 are other forms of the name Ronald?
- In the etymology graph, Reginald, Reynaldo and Reinaldo are forms of the same name in other languages; Ron, Ronnie and Ronny are recorded short or pet forms.
- What does the name Ronald mean, and where does it come from?
- From Gaelic Raonull, from Old Norse Rognvaldr, meaning 'counsel-rule'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Ronald a male or female name?
- Ronald 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 Ronald?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹɑnəld/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Ronald have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 690 thousand people named Ronald, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ronald.
- How common is the name Ronald?
- In the United States, the national register counted 689,843 people named Ronald in 2020, about 1 in 482 residents.
- How common is Ronald compared with other names?
- In the United States, Ronald is the 48th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ronald?
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/ronaldThe 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, “Ronald” — the 48th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.