Donella — girls' name

What the Data Says About Donella

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,818 babies named Donella between 1910 and 2018, spanning 109 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, Donella currently falls outside the top 1,000 girls' names for 2018. The name reached its historical peak in 1952, when 51 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Donella performed strongest in the 1970s, accumulating 333 births during that ten-year window. Across the 11 decades of recorded activity, Donella shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in South Carolina, which accounts for 21 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Ohio. In total, SSA state-level files list Donella in 6 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Donella in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 1,818 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.