Donald or Donalbain

[Wildflowersweet]

Again, two classic Scottish names. Donalbain is the name of a much beloved uncle we lost during Covid so is close to my heart. Donald is more common. Both I like.

What about “Donaldo”? Like everyone’s favourite moral-fibre footballer, but with a Scottish vibe?

I'm a 33 year Scot and have never met a Donald... I would associate it with older men. I agree with others and personally wouldn't consider it for a child in these times.

But I've also never heard of Donalbain...is it a West coast name? I'm NE Scotland.

Genius. Donaldino would be even better - plenty of potential 'nicknames'.

I'm Scottish and I would hesitate to use Donald because who knows what he's going to do next?

I've never met a Donalbain, but I wouldn't blink if I did, especially as it's a family name.

Go for Murray Donalbain - sounds great!

I had a wee look at the statistics (Scotlandspeople website)

2000 - Donald was used 163 times, 32 times as a first name and 131 as a middle name
2010 - 160 times, again more popular as a middle name than a first.
2020 - 135 times, with the balance tipping further towards middle name.
2024 -126 times, but only 14 of those were first names.

My reading of that is that there hasn't been much change in the number of Scottish parents who like the name, or who want to name after a grandfather, but they are wary of using it as a first name. The number using it overall has dropped by about a quarter, but the number using it as a first name has more than halved.

In 2024, the same number of baby boys were registered as Donald and Keir.
And Damian.

I tend to think of " Donald where's yur troosers" as opposed to Trump ☺️ Let the wind blow high , let the wind blow low...😂

You are right, I would not use Andrew, Jeffrey, Jimmy, for exactly those reasons.

I have no idea how to pronounce Donalbain. Could you help with that please?

Call your son what you like, however Donald/Donalbain still seem to be “old fashioned” names without coming back into popularity like some other classic names. How about Murray, Lewis, Cameron, Angus?

😆😆😆👏🏻👏🏻

I love Magnus.
Murray and Cameron are good names too.

Is that in England?

In 2024 Scotland had 126 uses of Donald as either a first or middle name, 28 uses of Damian as either a first or middle name, and 20 uses of Keir as either a first or middle name.

@Spinnylights, Scotland.
I got the figures from Babies First Names 2024 - National Records of Scotland (NRS)

There don't seem to be figures for 'England', only 'England & Wales'.(they're on the ONS site).

Poor kid. No to Donald.

Where did you get those figures? I used the government website, Scotlandspeople, which doesn't separate first and middle names? It's odd that our figures are so different.

Sorry, just seen that you said where they came from. That's interesting.

Sorry op Scottish have now decreased family members called Donald would immediately think Trump if a baby was called that today.

So many other names you could consider but if you go with either you need thicker skin to deal with the responses you'll get.

I do like Douglas, Dougal, Murray even a good old James.

It looks as though Scotlandspeople includes middle names, and the NRS doesn't. And Donald is overwhelmingly used as a middle name, possibly because it's a grandfather's name.

Definitely.

@Spinnylights , was looking for the England & Wales figures. They're here, Baby names in England and Wales: 2024 - Office for National Statistics, or Baby name explorer.

The first or middle name is probably misleading because it's a name that's been for a very long time, and might be used a lot as a 'middle' name, whereas Keir or Damian wouldn't.

When I was at school, Thomas, David, William and John were very popular 'middle' names (e.g. Alan registered as William Alan or Alan William,or Steve registered as Stephen John or John Stephen).

SP has difficulty with middle names as there are only so many spaces so you often get a middle name cut in half.

Right now, not Donald because we don’t know how things will pan out, you don’t want to saddle a child with a name which in 5 years time makes people think you are a supporter! Of course in a couple of years it might be Donald is no more (not a young man) and America has calmed down because the orange mans lackeys were just appeasing him and didn’t really believe the stuff they are spouting. We can’t tell but today I would not call a baby Donald

Exactly. Well said! 👏

Better not call a child Peter due to a notorious mass murder 🙄. Virtually any name could have a tenuous connection to somebody unpleasant.