Dolores

104,660 people in America carry this name — ranked #535 of 923.

Its American moment came before the war.

Say it duh LAW rihs

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

D AH0 L AO1 R IH0 S — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 104,660 2020 Census
  • Rank #535 Common

The meaning and origin of Dolores

Latin in origin, reading literally as “sorrows”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Dolores through the years

212,451 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1930, with 12,917 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30s 40 50 60 70 80 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1930s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names that fit Dolores

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Dolores Susan — runs together
  • Dolores Sarah — runs together
  • Dolores Sharon — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Dolores has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Silent Generation.

Is Dolores used for boys or for girls?

1.1% men
103,514 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Where the name Dolores is most common in the US

In New Mexico the name is given 6.1 times as often as it is across the country.

  • New Mexico ×6.1
  • Texas ×2.2
  • California ×2.1
  • Arizona ×1.8
  • Pennsylvania ×1.7

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Names built the same way as Dolores

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the second

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

Who carries it today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 59.5%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 5.2%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 31.4%
  • Two or more races — 1.0%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 2.5%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

The most common full names

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Try it Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Latin origin