Doll

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Doll is a surname, most frequently recorded in Germany. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From a medieval nickname for a foolish person, from Middle English dolle ‘dull, foolish’.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany1 in 7.6K
  • CACanada1 in 23K
  • USUnited States1 in 34K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈16K

across 10 countries

Sources
341

121K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 12K

Netherlands

Spellings & scripts

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Doell in CD Congo - Kinshasa, NZ New Zealand, Döll in ES Spain and Dole in KR South Korea.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin

From a medieval nickname for a foolish person, from Middle English dolle ‘dull, foolish’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Doll is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#60814,65113K rec.listedDoll142
US United States9,74989K rec.1 in 34K9.7KDoll341
GB United Kingdom4,5524.5K rec.listedDoll71
IN India4,520581 rec.1 in 293K4.5KDoll47
CA Canada3,2103.1K rec.1Doll78
NL Netherlands1,383246 rec.1 in 12K1.4KDoll26
AU Australia1,2671.3K rec.Doll64
PK Pakistan1,026932 rec.Doll23
IT Italy590637 rec.Doll18
IL Israel524551 rec.Doll10
SA Saudi Arabia41691 rec.Doll9
AT Austria374235 rec.Doll31

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages

  • English90K69%
  • German16K12%
  • French4.8K4%
  • Spanish4.4K3%
  • 1.8K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English89,57069%
German15,87312%
French4,8324%
Spanish4,4413%
1,8491%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way

Doll is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname7.6K records spelled Doll10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Döll, Dóll, Ďöll, Dôll, Dõll

  • French surname5.3K records spelled Doll5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Spain, Canada

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Döll, Doļl, Dõll

  • a separate surname2.4K records spelled Doll2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada

    Also written Döll

  • Russian surname771 records spelled Doll12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Russia, United States, Slovakia

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Czech

    Also written Долль, Долл, Döll

  • Chinese surname616 records spelled Doll6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Malaysia

    Also written Döll, Dǒll, Dôll, Ďoll, Dolls

62 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses

Doll 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.

  • In English, from OE dol 'foolish'; first attested Lewingus Dol 1066 Winton

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, A small figure resembling a human being that is used as a toy.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, firm, hard, forceful, strong (of actions, also of emotions)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Patronym zu Berthold mit Assimilation zu ll; ld/ll-Varianz; 3245 Belege.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

  • In German, Atlasplate zu Dentale: Plosive; Schreibvarianten Doll/Dol. 3245 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

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.

Over time

051015190019201940196014 · 1916

Show as table
Doll in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1893–1968
Yearrecords
18935
18956
18975
18985
19017
19027
190512
19068
19075
19087
19095
19108
191111
191210
19138
191410
19158
191614
191712
19186
19198
192010
192110
19228
19239
19259
19279
19289
19295
19307
19315
193210
19369
19388
19399
19418
19427
19447
19466
19505
19516
19528
19535
19555
195610
19587
19605
19626
19686

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)49 years between 1893–1968. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name

190019201940196019802000Richard Doll, b. 1912Bob Doll, b. 1919Caren Marsh Doll, b. 1919Dora Doll, b. 1922Birgit Doll, b. 1958Thomas Doll, b. 1966Barbara Doll, b. 1972Diana Doll, b. 1976Tiffany Doll, b. 1986Benedikt Doll, b. 1990
  • Richard Dollb. 1912GBBritish physician and epidemiologist (1912–2005)
  • Bob Dollb. 1919USAmerican basketball player (1919–1959)
  • Caren Marsh Dollb. 1919USactress, dancer, last surviving actress from the 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz"
  • Dora Dollb. 1922FRFrench actress (1922–2015)
  • Birgit Dollb. 1958ATAustrian actress (1958–2015)
  • Thomas Dollb. 1966DEGerman association football manager (born 1966)
  • Barbara Dollb. 1972FRFrench pornographic actress (1972–2023)
  • Diana Dollb. 1976SKSlovak pornographic actress
  • Tiffany Dollb. 1986FRFrench pornographic actress
  • Benedikt Dollb. 1990DEGerman biathlete

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

Attested in 38 sources across 23 countries.

Official registers attesting Doll
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020109.7K#3,646
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020209.7K#3,587
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020009.6K#3,429
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)233#32,417
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007213#9,770
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020171#38,893
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024118#9,701
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1961109
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1931106
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)194199
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199192
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)200887#17,327

Reference works 4

  • Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 106 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Doll?
We estimate roughly 16 thousand people bear Doll (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Doll have the most bearers?
Doll is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled doll.
How common is Doll compared with other names?
In Germany, Doll is the 608th most common surname of 734,811 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Doll mean?
Recorded meaning: From a medieval nickname for a foolish person, from Middle English dolle ‘dull, foolish’.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/doll

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Doll” — the 608th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Doll parses inside a full name →