Ronald
An English masculine name derived from the Old English "Reginald," meaning "wise counselor."
Name Census estimates that about 714,772 living Americans carry the first name Ronald. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Ronald today is around 65 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Ronald births was 1947 (34,973 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Ronald. 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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Ronald with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Ronald is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 3,845 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Ronald is about 65 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Ronalds were born before 1971.
- • Compared to the 1940s, recent registration numbers for Ronald have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
715K
~ 1 in 480 Americans
Peak year
1947
34,973 babies that year
Average age
65
years old
2024 SSA rank
#575
Tracked since 1883
Census
Ronald in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 689,835 people with the first name Ronald, which placed it at #52 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
#52
National first-name rank
People counted
690K
689,835 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
228.4
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
80.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Ronald
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ronald is White at 80.3%. The next largest groups are Black (11.3%) and Hispanic (4.0%). 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 Ronald 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 Ronald at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White80.3% · 553,799
- Black or African American11.3% · 78,128
- Hispanic or Latino4.0% · 27,440
- Two or more races2.1% · 14,772
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.6% · 11,032
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 4,664
Gender
Gender distribution for Ronald
Out of the 1,085,633 babies given the name Ronald since 1880, 99.6% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Ronald as a male name
- Ranked #575 in 2024
- 495 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1947 (34,900 births)
Ronald as a female name
- Ranked #16,335 in 1999
- 5 female births in 1999
- Peak: 1967 (100 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ronald appears almost entirely male. Of the 689,843 people counted with this name, 99.9% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Ronald: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Ronald from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 283,179 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Ronald 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 Ronald during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Ronalds live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Ronald, while Alaska, Nevada, Wyoming recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 21,188 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Ronald
The name Ronald has its origins in the ancient Germanic language, tracing back to around the 5th century AD. It is derived from the words "ragin" meaning "counsel" and "waldan" meaning "ruler," essentially translating to "counsel ruler" or "ruling counsel." The name was initially spelled as "Ragn(ǫ)aldr" or "Raginwaldr" in Old Norse.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name can be found in the Icelandic Landnámabók, a medieval text that chronicles the settlement of Iceland. It mentions a Norwegian chieftain named Rögnvaldr Eyvindarson, who lived in the 9th century AD and was among the first settlers of Iceland.
In the Middle Ages, the name gained popularity across Scandinavia and parts of Europe, with variations like Reinald, Reinold, and Reynold appearing in different regions. The name was particularly common among the Norman nobility, and it is believed that the Norman conquest of England in 1066 helped spread its usage in the British Isles.
One notable bearer of the name was Ronald de Umfraville, a 13th-century English nobleman and Lord of Redesdale. Another was Ronald of Burgundy, a 12th-century Benedictine monk and the founder of the Cistercian abbey of Obazine in France.
In the 16th century, the spelling "Ronald" became more prevalent, particularly in Scotland. One famous Scottish bearer of the name was Ronald Cheyne, a scholar and historian who lived from 1519 to 1572. He was a member of the Scottish Parliament and authored several works on Scottish history.
Another notable figure was Ronald Gair, a Scottish mathematician and astronomer who lived from 1610 to 1677. He made significant contributions to the study of astronomy and was a professor at the University of Edinburgh.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the name continued to be popular in Scotland and England. One prominent individual was Ronald Crawford, a Scottish politician and lawyer who lived from 1636 to 1719 and served as Lord Provost of Edinburgh.
As the name spread to other parts of the world, it gained popularity in different cultures and languages. One notable bearer was Ronald Ross, a British physician and Nobel laureate who lived from 1857 to 1932. He made groundbreaking discoveries in the study of malaria and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1902.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Ronald
People
Ronald + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Ronald as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with R
Other first names starting with R with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Ronald: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Ronald?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 714,772 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Ronald 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 480 US residents.
Is Ronald a common name?
We classify Ronald as "Very Common". It ranks above 100% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,085,633 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Ronald most popular?
The single biggest year for Ronald was 1947, when 34,973 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Ronald is about 65 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Ronald in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 689,835 people with the name Ronald, or 228.40 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #52 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 Ronald 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 Ronald?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Ronald appears almost entirely male. Of the 689,843 people counted with this name, 99.9% 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 Ronald?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Ronald is White at 80.3%. The next largest groups are Black (11.3%) and Hispanic (4.0%). 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 Ronald most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Ronald in the 2020 Census, accounting for 80.3% (553,799 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 Ronald in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Ronald a male name?
Yes, 99.6% of people registered as Ronald 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 Ronald still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Ronald 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 Ronald 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 Ronald?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.