Meaning and history
Douglas comes from a Scottish surname derived from the name of a town in Lanarkshire, which was itself named for the Douglas Water, a tributary of the River Clyde. The name means “dark river,” from Gaelic dubh “dark” and glais “water, river,” an archaic word related to glas “grey, green.” It was the name of a Scottish Lowland clan whose leaders were powerful medieval earls, and its Gaelic forms are Dùghlas and Dùbhghlas. It has been used as a given name since the 16th century.
20062006: 824 births, rank #361
2007: 757 births, rank #394
2008: 687 births, rank #424
2009: 589 births, rank #462
2010: 536 births, rank #485
20112011: 505 births, rank #513
2012: 452 births, rank #570
2013: 492 births, rank #541
2014: 458 births, rank #598
2015: 437 births, rank #615
20162016: 447 births, rank #603
2017: 413 births, rank #629
2018: 373 births, rank #673
2019: 374 births, rank #684
2020: 334 births, rank #737
20212021: 347 births, rank #737
2022: 300 births, rank #827
2023: 354 births, rank #743
2024: 286 births, rank #848
20252025: 308 births, rank #807
Douglas rose from #848 to #807 for boys between 2024 and 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 1957, with 16,730 births.