Name
Douglas
Meaning
Douglas is a masculine name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning “dark stream”.
Douglas combines the Gaelic elements dubh, dark, and glais, stream, originally naming a river and then the powerful Scottish clan who lived along it. It carries centuries of border-warfare history and peaked as an American given name in the 1940s and 1950s.
A US top-50 boys' name in the mid-twentieth century; now a quiet classic.
Popularity in the United States
Boys
Ranked #807 in 2025 · peak #62 in 1980
Data: US Social Security Administration, top-1000 ranks.
At a glance
- Origin
- Scottish Gaelic
- Gender
- Masculine
- Pronounced
- /DUG-las/
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Questions
Douglas is a masculine name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning “dark stream”. Douglas combines the Gaelic elements dubh, dark, and glais, stream, originally naming a river and then the powerful Scottish clan who lived along it.
Douglas is traditionally a masculine (boy) name. It is a US top-50 boys' name in the mid-twentieth century; now a quiet classic.
The name Douglas comes from Scottish Gaelic. Douglas combines the Gaelic elements dubh, dark, and glais, stream, originally naming a river and then the powerful Scottish clan who lived along it. It carries centuries of border-warfare history and peaked as an American given name in the 1940s and 1950s.
Douglas is pronounced DUG-las.
More names that mean water
Names that share this meaning.