Donvan
Celtic name meaning "brown-haired" or "dark warrior."
Name Census estimates that about 12 living Americans carry the first name Donvan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Donvan today is around 37 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Donvan births was 1990 (7 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Donvan. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Donvan. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
12
~ 1 in 28,562,862 Americans
Peak year
1990
7 babies that year
Average age
37
years old
1990 SSA rank
#6,614
Tracked since 1985
Census
Donvan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 204 people with the first name Donvan, which placed it at #37,948 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#37,948
National first-name rank
People counted
204
204 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
43.6% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Donvan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Donvan is Black at 43.6%. The next largest groups are White (31.4%) and Hispanic (14.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Donvan described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Donvan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American43.6% · 89
- White31.4% · 64
- Hispanic or Latino14.7% · 30
- Two or more races5.9% · 12
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 6
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 3
Popularity
Donvan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Donvan from the 1980s through to the 1990s, spanning 2 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 7 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Donvan by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Donvan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Origin
Meaning and history of Donvan
The name Donvan is believed to have originated from the Irish Gaelic language, with roots dating back to the 5th or 6th century. It is thought to derive from the old Irish words "donn" meaning "brown" or "dark-haired" and "van" meaning "small" or "little". The combination of these words suggests that the name Donvan may have initially referred to a person with a small or slight build and dark hair.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Donvan can be found in the Annals of Ulster, a chronicle of medieval Irish history that spans from the 5th to the 16th century. In this text, the name is spelled "Donuan" and appears to refer to a minor Irish chieftain or clan leader from the 7th century.
The name Donvan has also been linked to several early Christian saints and religious figures. In the 8th century, a monk named Donvan is said to have founded a small monastery in County Sligo, Ireland, which became an important center of learning and religious study during the Middle Ages.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance period, the name Donvan remained relatively rare but was occasionally borne by notable individuals. One such person was Donvan O'Malley, an Irish poet and bard who lived in the 15th century and was renowned for his lyrical compositions praising the exploits of various Irish chieftains.
In the 17th century, a man named Donvan Fitzgerald served as a captain in the Irish Confederate Army during the Irish Confederate Wars, a series of conflicts between the Catholic Irish and the English Protestant forces. Fitzgerald was known for his bravery and military leadership, and his name is recorded in several historical accounts of the battles he fought in.
Another notable bearer of the name was Donvan MacNeill, a Scottish Gaelic scholar and linguist who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. MacNeill was instrumental in preserving and documenting the Gaelic language and culture of the Scottish Highlands, and his work remains an important resource for linguistic researchers and historians.
In more recent times, the name Donvan has been used less frequently, but it has been borne by a few notable individuals, such as Donvan Makaveckas, a Lithuanian-American artist and sculptor who gained recognition for his abstract and experimental works in the mid-20th century.
People
Donvan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Donvan as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with D
Other first names starting with D with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Donvan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Donvan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 12 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Donvan going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 28,562,862 US residents.
Is Donvan a common name?
We classify Donvan as "Very Rare". It ranks above 32.3% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 12 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Donvan most popular?
The single biggest year for Donvan was 1990, when 7 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Donvan is about 37 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Donvan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 204 people with the name Donvan, or 0.07 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #37,948 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Donvan in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Donvan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Donvan appears almost entirely male. Of the 202 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Donvan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Donvan is Black at 43.6%. The next largest groups are White (31.4%) and Hispanic (14.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Donvan most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Donvan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 43.6% (89 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Donvan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Donvan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Donvan in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Donvan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Donvan in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Donvan can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Donvan?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.