Dolan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: O Dobhailen ‘black defiance’, ‘challenge’; sept of Galway and Roscommon
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Dolan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 11K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 467 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.8K (inferred from the name graph)
27,329 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
O Dobhailen ‘black defiance’, ‘challenge’; sept of Galway and Roscommon
Sources 1
- Irish family names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dolan counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 27,329 | 1 in 12K | 27K | Dolan | 467 |
| GB United Kingdom | #682 | ≈9,400 est. | ≈1 in 7K | listed | Dolan | 230 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Dolan | 9 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Dolan | 160 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 21K | 1 | Dolan | 20 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 1 | Dolan | 143 |
| IE Ireland | #198 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Dolan | 126 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Dolan | 50 |
| IS Iceland | — | ≈47 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | listed | Dolan | 3 |
27,329 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Dolan is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
‘descendant of Dubhshldn’, a personal name composed of 17s Dolcetta Dominique the elements diibh dark, black + sldn challenge, defiance. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Dobhailein] see Devlin. Vars. (of i); 0’Do(w)lane. Dowlan, Dowlin, Dowling. See also Delaney. Dolcetta see Duce
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
‘descendant of Dubhshldn’, a personal name composed of the elements dubh dark, black + slan challenge, defiance. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Dobhailein\ see Devlin. Vars. (of 1): 0’Do(w)lane, Dowlan, Dowlin, Dowling. See also Delaney.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A surname from Irish that originated in Ireland.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Javanese, to play
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, former une roulure
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Robert Emmett Dolanb. 1908USAmerican composer (1908–1972)
- Anne Nagelb. 1915USnot in their usual nameactress (1915-1966)
- Larry Dolanb. 1931USAmerican attorney (1931–2025)
- Timothy Dolanb. 1950USAmerican Catholic cardinal, Archibishop of New York (1950–)
- Tony Dolanb. 1964GBBritish musician
- Paul Dolanb. 1966CACanadian soccer player
- Monica Dolanb. 1969GBBritish actress
- Tom Dolanb. 1975USAmerican swimmer
- Ryan Dolanb. 1985GBIrish pop singer
- Xavier Dolanb. 1989CACanadian filmmaker (born 1989)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 45 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 27K | #1,283 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 27K | #1,179 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 26K | #1,312 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Dolan mean, and where does it come from?
- O Dobhailen ‘black defiance’, ‘challenge’; sept of Galway and Roscommon Recorded by Irish family names.
- In which country does Dolan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 27 thousand people named Dolan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dolan.
- How common is the name Dolan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 27,329 people named Dolan in 2010, about 1 in 12 thousand residents.
- How common is Dolan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Dolan is the 198th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dolan?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/dolanThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Dolan” — the 198th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.