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Boy · Old Norse, through Scottish
Ronald
Say it: RON-uld
Meaning
A Scottish form of Old Norse Rögnvaldr: regin 'advice, the gods' + valdr 'ruler'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
Brought to Scotland by Norse settlers, it was a top-ten US name in the 1930s and 1940s.
Its wave through time
A fashion of the 1940s
In the United States
- 1,083,614 babies given this name since 1883
- At its height in 1943, about 1 in 49 boys
- 501 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The Viking and Anglo-Saxon Age700 to 1100
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
| Old Norse | Rögnvaldr |
|---|---|
| Scottish Gaelic | Raghnall |
| English | Reynold |
Famous bearers
- Ronald Reagan, US president
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- The Icelandic sagas and other Old Norse literature
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.