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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

What do we think of Donald?

62 replies

Cissyandflora · 06/11/2021 19:34

I ask because I know a miserable Donald who blames his name for a sorry old life. Obviously there will be lovely Donalds about but is it going to make a comeback along with the other older style names. I don’t like the sound of the name although McDonald as a surname sounds fine to me. I had a Ronald in my class at school and always felt sorry for him and for Donald. Is it still used in Scotland?

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Srettel · 08/11/2021 17:01

A quick glance at Scotlandspeople shows that dozens / hundreds of boys in Scotland were given Donald as a middle name in the last couple of years. It seems less common as a first name. I'm guessing that most of those baby boys were given a grandfather or father's name as a middle name.

Lockdownbear · 07/11/2021 21:22

@lovablequalities I had a feeling you were either going to say islands or the far north.

Nothing wrong with those sorts of names, there really isn't and I do think they will make a come back in the central belt eventually. Big fashion some of the gaelic sounding names at the moment.

Onlinedilema · 07/11/2021 21:17

Hell no.
Trump
Duck
Do not do this to a child.

upaladderagain · 07/11/2021 21:16

Forever blighted

dementedma · 07/11/2021 21:15

Not surprised to hear it still popular in Outer Hebrides. Always seem to meet lots of Donalds whenever I visit there.

disappear · 07/11/2021 20:47

South African activist Donald Woods died on the day that DS2 was born and I toyed with the idea of giving him the middle name Donald, especially as it was my DGF’s name. Post Trump, I’m so glad I didn’t.

lovablequalities · 07/11/2021 19:46

@Lockdownbear

Outer Hebrides. It is still very much the done thing to name for father/grandfather here and no one would think it in anyway odd to meet baby Donald/Murdo/Neil/Colin etc. Or really any of the other names that are regularly mocked and ridiculed on the names board here.

Emmelina · 07/11/2021 19:39

Duck?
Trump?

Adventing · 07/11/2021 19:27

I actually think its quite a nice sounding name, like the Scotland connection and I'm sure there are some lovely Donalds out there but...I hear Donald l think Trump

mockingjaye · 07/11/2021 18:31

Absolutely not.

Topseyt · 07/11/2021 18:31

I'd always think of Donald Trump or Donald Duck.

Donald Trump has done more than anyone else in the world to render the name Donald unusable.

Etonmessisyum · 07/11/2021 17:47

It’s ok. I wouldn’t use it. It’s trousers not troosis what ever they are?

Douglas is nice, Bradley? I’m Scottish and I don’t think I know a Donald and dont like Don as a short version sorry. Maybe as a middle name?..

CtrlU · 07/11/2021 17:40

Donald Duck

ShinyMe · 07/11/2021 17:40

Aw, this thread made me google my old uni friend. He has websites and videos on YouTube and everything - he's apparently one of the UK's leading circus performer people. The videos made me smile, so that's one good thing from this thread.

awonderfuladventure · 07/11/2021 15:29

Awful name now for obvious reasons. Probably as popular as Nigel and Boris now.

SalsaLove · 07/11/2021 14:01

Don is a Turkish word for underpants. 😂

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 07/11/2021 13:55

Donald ruined for a generation. Ronald was ruined by Reagan, but not as badly as Donald by Trump, and Ronald was already unfashionable in the 70s.

I'm amazed to see Ronnie, Reggie and Frankie featuring in the top 100 boys' names in E&W. The Kray Brothers assocation would put me right off.

Lockdownbear · 07/11/2021 13:48

@lovablequalities

In my part of Scotland this is still a very popular name. I know about a dozen kids under 18 with this name. Perhaps if you live somewhere that it isn't a popular name then the duck or Trump are your only reference points.
Roughly where abouts are you? I'm in the central belt, the youngest Donald I've ever come across would have been born mid 70s. The rest are all much older.
Cissyandflora · 07/11/2021 13:08

@lovablequalities

In my part of Scotland this is still a very popular name. I know about a dozen kids under 18 with this name. Perhaps if you live somewhere that it isn't a popular name then the duck or Trump are your only reference points.
Yes I think that’s it. My Donald was definitely the only one in school with the name and no one else we know is named Donald. He also wasn’t allowed to shorten it. Strict parents. So since adulthood he has been Don but he detests his name. And I’ve never warmed to it. I really don’t like Ronnie either. That seems to be popular along with Reggie. I think the sound of the names are unpleasant. Our Donald is an angry man and I often wonder if he would have been nicer if he hadn’t had a name he detested.
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lovablequalities · 07/11/2021 12:57

In my part of Scotland this is still a very popular name. I know about a dozen kids under 18 with this name. Perhaps if you live somewhere that it isn't a popular name then the duck or Trump are your only reference points.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 07/11/2021 12:55

See I like it, and I think it's a perfectly lovely and longstanding name.

But...Donald Trump has ruined it for a bit.

BruiserWoods · 07/11/2021 12:53

I like it.

timestheyarechanging · 07/11/2021 12:49

....and known as Donnie

timestheyarechanging · 07/11/2021 12:48

No no no no no. He will be likened to Donald Trump and Donald Duck!
I do have a lovely friend called Donald but he's almost 60 and has always (I've known him 35yrs) been known as Donovan as he hates his real name (more so even now with Trump!).

muddyford · 07/11/2021 12:45

Donnie is even worse!

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