Donna

Where Donna comes from

A 19th-century invention from the Italian noun donna; also interpreted as a feminine form of Donald.
— Wiktionary's entry for Donna
  • Italian
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #403 among girls — 17 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1948
    Donna Summer born
    American singer
  3. 1959
    Donna Strickland born
    Canadian physicist, Nobel laurate
  4. 1959
    Peak, #5
    36,468 babies named Donna — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1966
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #12.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from Italian.
Namesakes
  • Donna Strickland · Canadian physicist, Nobel laurate, born 1959
  • Donna Summer · American singer, 1948–2012
  • Donna Tartt · American writer, born 1963
  • Donna Reed · American film and television actress, 1921–1986
  • Donna Haraway · American philosopher, scholar in the field of science and technology studies, born 1944

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.