O'Donnell
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/məkdɒnəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
O'Donnell is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 22nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: From Irish Ó Dónaill, Ó Domhnaill (“of Domhnall”).
- USUnited States1 in 7.7K(measured from records)
- EGEgypt≈1 in 17K
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.1Kas Donnelly
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 O'Donnell 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 473 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 6.5K (inferred from the name graph)
43,460 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hungary, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Donnelly in GB United Kingdom, AU Australia, CA Canada and 2 more and Odonnell in US United States, EG Egypt, HU Hungary.
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 Irish Ó Dónaill, Ó Domhnaill (“of Domhnall”).
Sources 1
Where in the world(measured from records)
O'Donnell 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 | #343 | 43,460 | 1 in 7.7K | 43K | Odonnell | 473 |
| GB United Kingdom | #149 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | 14K | Donnelly | 257 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Odonnell | 7 |
| AU Australia | #152 | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | 1 | Donnelly | 202 |
| CA Canada | #265 | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 7.4K | — | Donnelly | 191 |
| IE Ireland | #22 | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Donnelly | 149 |
| HU Hungary | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | — | Odonnell | 6 |
| NZ New Zealand | #177 | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Donnelly | 93 |
43,460 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Cathy O'Donnellb. 1923USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1923–1970)
- Kenneth O'Donnellb. 1924USnot in their usual nameAmerican political aide (1924-1977)
- Guillermo O'Donnellb. 1936ARnot in their usual nameArgentine academic, political scientist and writer (1936-2011)
- Anthony O'Donnellb. 1949GBnot in their usual nameWelsh actor
- Lawrence O'Donnellb. 1951USnot in their usual nameAmerican television presenter
- Rosie O'Donnellb. 1962USnot in their usual nameAmerican comedian, producer, actress, and television personality
- Chris O'Donnellb. 1970USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor
- Phil O'Donnellb. 1972GBnot in their usual nameScottish association football player (1972-2007)
- Keir O'Donnellb. 1978AUnot in their usual nameAustralian–American actor
- Steven O'Donnellb. 1980NZnot in their usual nameAustralian television presenter and actor
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 17 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 14K | #523 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 O'Donnell mean, and where does it come from?
- From Irish Ó Dónaill, Ó Domhnaill (“of Domhnall”). Recorded by Wiktionary.
- What are other forms of the name O'Donnell?
- In the etymology graph, O’Donnell is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce O'Donnell?
- A machine transcription gives /məkdɒnəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does O'Donnell have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 43 thousand people named O'Donnell, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled odonnell.
- How common is the name O'Donnell?
- In the United States, the national register counted 43,460 people named O'Donnell in 2010, about 1 in 7.7 thousand residents.
- How common is O'Donnell compared with other names?
- In the United States, O'Donnell is the 343rd most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about O'Donnell?
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/o'donnellThe 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, “O'Donnell” — the 343rd most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.