# Donovan (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/donovan/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A surname from Irish.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Irish |
| Type | patronymic, formed from a father’s (or ancestor’s) given name |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 40,410 |
| US rank (2010) | 853 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 7,640 people |
| Change since 2000 | +2.9% (39,270 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈdɒnəvɪn/, 3 syllables |
| Variant spellings | Donavan |

## Etymology

From Irish Ó Donndubháin (“descendant of (a person named) brown & black”), from donn (“brown”) and dubh (“black”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Donovan in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 93% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 2.0% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.8% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.7% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.3% |
| Two or more races | 1.3% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Donovan in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United Kingdom.

## People named Donovan

- Landon Donovan, American soccer player
- Tate Donovan, American actor (born 1963)
- Martin Donovan, American actor (born 1957)
- Jeffrey Donovan, American actor (born 1968)
- Jason Donovan, Australian actor and singer
- Anne Donovan, American basketball player and coach (1961–2018)
- Trevor Donovan, American actor
- Shaun Donovan, American government official
- Elisa Donovan, American actress
- James B. Donovan, American diplomat and politician
- Marion Donovan, American inventor and architect (1917–1998)
- Edward Donovan, Anglo-Irish writer, natural history illustrator, and amateur zoologist (1768-1837)

and 15 more on Wikidata.

## Similar surnames

Dunavant.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.