Douglas

Where Douglas comes from

From a place name, Scottish Gaelic dubh (“black”) + glais (“stream”).
— Wiktionary's entry for Douglas
  • 2 syllables
Along the way
  1. 1880
    Douglas MacArthur born
    United States Army general in WWI, WWII and Korea
  2. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #314 among boys — 29 babies in the first year on record.
  3. 1942
    Peak, #23
    11,233 babies named Douglas — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1952
    Douglas Adams born
    British science fiction writer and humorist
  5. 1975
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #55.
In the dictionary
  • A male given name transferred from the surname.
Namesakes
  • Douglas Adams · British science fiction writer and humorist, 1952–2001
  • Douglas MacArthur · United States Army general in WWI, WWII and Korea, 1880–1964
  • Douglas Engelbart · American engineer and inventor, 1925–2013
  • Douglas Osheroff · American physicist, born 1945
  • Douglas Fairbanks · American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer, 1883–1939

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.