Baby name 'Donald' hit record low popularity in US ⁠28%

By Jordan Liles⁠5%

7/21/2026, 11:00:10 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotion, and Bandwagon, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 28% saturation with 166 hits. Analysis detected 1,028 faulty-reasoning hits from 593 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 38.8% and a BS Rank of ⁠28% (15,835 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 72.30% of the article peer group.

In June and July 2026, people claimed that in 2025 the baby name "Donald" hit a record low in popularity for new births in the U.S. 
Social media users' posts featured the purported fact alongside images of U.S. 
President Donald Trump. 
For example, on June 28, a user managing the anti-GOP X account @GOP__Ls posted (archived) a picture of Trump holding a baby with the caption, "Fewer than 400 babies were named Donald last year. 
The name just hit its lowest popularity in recorded US history." 
Others shared the claim on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived) and X (archived). 
In short, this was true. 
According to the U.S. 
Social Security Administration, data for the years 1900 through 2025 showed the year 2025 was the least popular year for the baby name "Donald." 
The name ranked 690th in 2025, its lowest ranking on record. 
The SSA results page showed "Donald" ranked as the 6th most popular baby name in 1934, its highest ranking on record. 
The page read: 
> For 2025, the number of births with name Donald is 395, which represents 0.022 percent of total male births in 2025. 
> 
> The year when the name Donald was most popular is 1934. 
In that year, the number of births is 30408, which represents 2.863 percent of total male births in 1934. 
According to the SSA, the most popular baby boy names in Trump's birth year, 1946, featured "James" as the top choice, followed by "Robert," "John," "William," "Richard," "David," "Michael," "Thomas," "Charles" and "Ronald." 
"Donald" ranked 13th, just three spots behind "Ronald." 
## Meme compares 'Donald' and 'Adolf' names 
An apparent minority of users sharing the rumor, including in the Snopes Tips Facebook group (archived), posted a meme about former German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, reading, "Fun fact: After World War II, the number of newborns named Adolf dropped to its lowest rate in history. 
In other news, only 400 newborns were named Donald last year — dropping to its lowest rate in history." 
The SSA website appeared to only display annual data for the top 1,000 baby names for boys and girls. 
As such, the website's data for "Adolf" stopped showing data for new births after 1928 — a year in which the name ranked 950th among baby boys. 
FindAGrave.com, a website documenting cemetery burials, found 2,372 records for deceased people named "Adolf" who were born after 1928 and received U.S. burials. 
After 1945, that number dropped to around 900 records — not including U.S.-based persons named "Adolf" still alive in 2026. 
(Some of those individuals may have immigrated to the U.S. or changed their names after birth.) 
In 2018, HuffPost.com reported about the decline of the name "Adolf," publishing some additional data reportedly from the SSA website that did not appear in our searches in 2026. 
The number of baby boys named "Adolf" reportedly dropped to the teens in the 1930s, then to just five newborns in 1944 — with no more than 12 newborns receiving the name in a single year in subsequent decades. 
According to the SSA website, the alternate spelling of "Adolph" last displayed in the top 1,000 baby boy names in 1970. 
Snopes contacted the SSA to ask for more annual data regarding the name "Adolf" and will update this article if we receive further information. 
For further reading, we previously reported about a claim in which users drew comparisons between a picture of Hitler's promotion of Volkswagen with Trump's support of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk's Tesla. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 12.3%Jordan Liles: 2.3%Snopes: 2.4%Confirmation Bias12.3%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.9%Snopes: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 14.0%Jordan Liles: 2.7%Snopes: 3.4%Availability Heuristic14.0%This article: 5.6%Jordan Liles: 1.7%Snopes: 1.3%Representativeness Heuristic5.6%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.2%Snopes: 0.2%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 8.6%Jordan Liles: 1.5%Snopes: 1.2%Overconfidence Bias8.6%This article: 1.2%Jordan Liles: 0.7%Snopes: 2.4%Framing Effect1.2%This article: 3.2%Jordan Liles: 0.2%Snopes: 0.2%Loss Aversion3.2%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.1%Snopes: 0.5%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.1%Snopes: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.5%Snopes: 0.5%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.4%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 8.1%Jordan Liles: 4.0%Snopes: 5.1%Negativity Bias8.1%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.7%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.6%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.1%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.1%Snopes: 0.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 1.0%Snopes: 0.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 4.4%Jordan Liles: 0.8%Snopes: 1.5%Recency Bias4.4%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 1.1%Snopes: 1.5%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.4%Straw Man0.0%This article: 19.9%Jordan Liles: 6.1%Snopes: 6.0%Appeal to Authority19.9%This article: 3.4%Jordan Liles: 1.1%Snopes: 0.9%False Dilemma3.4%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.4%Snopes: 0.6%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.5%Snopes: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 1.5%Jordan Liles: 2.3%Snopes: 3.5%Hasty Generalization1.5%This article: 5.2%Jordan Liles: 0.7%Snopes: 0.7%Red Herring5.2%This article: 16.5%Jordan Liles: 3.0%Snopes: 1.5%Bandwagon16.5%This article: 17.0%Jordan Liles: 4.8%Snopes: 3.0%Appeal to Emotion17.0%This article: 0.8%Jordan Liles: 0.1%Snopes: 0.4%Begging the Question0.8%This article: 3.4%Jordan Liles: 2.7%Snopes: 1.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)3.4%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 4.0%Jordan Liles: 0.7%Snopes: 1.6%Burden of Proof4.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 28.0%Jordan Liles: 3.9%Snopes: 1.8%Anecdotal28.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.4%Snopes: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 7.8%Jordan Liles: 1.1%Snopes: 1.8%Ambiguity (Equivocation)7.8%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.2%Snopes: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 2.7%Jordan Liles: 0.2%Snopes: 0.1%Special Pleading2.7%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.8%Snopes: 3.3%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 2.8%Snopes: 2.3%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 5.7%Jordan Liles: 1.9%Snopes: 2.5%Biased Writer Voice5.7%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.4%Snopes: 0.7%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.2%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.0%Snopes: 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Jordan Liles: 0.1%Snopes: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

593 words analyzed.

Speakers

4speakers40%attributed speech356writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverage@GOP__Ls • 34 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 0.0% coverageSocial Security Administration • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverageSocial Security Administration • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageSocial Security Administration • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageSocial Security Administration • 33 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 48 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageFindAGrave.com • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageHuffPost.com • 29 words • 0.0% coverageHuffPost.com • 39 words • 0.0% coverageSocial Security Administration • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

@GOP__Ls

100%flagged-word coverage
34 attributed words14% of attributed speech86% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+100.0 ptsWriter: 0.0%@GOP__Ls: 100.0%100.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.