Name Awesome

Dong

Boys' name

East

Dong has been given to 318 babies in the U.S. since 1956. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1991, with 19 recorded.

Babies named Dong, 2017

1 in 596,000

Dong over time, 1880–2025

Boys
0510152018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Dong: meaning, origin, and history

East

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Dong means

Dong means “east”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Dong is used in Chinese.

Another recorded pronunciation is /tʊŋ/ for Dong.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 318 boys were recorded with the name Dong between 1956 and 2017. Its highest annual count was 19 in 1991; its best national rank was #2,738 in 1982.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Dong?

Dong had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2017, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2017
1 in 596,000
6 of 3,577,106 births
Among boys only
1 in 308,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2017
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
413,245 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Dong sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2017 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 413,245 children born in 2017 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Dong. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Dongs were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Dong was born before 1988 — so the typical Dong is around 37 today.

Median birth year
1988
About 37 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
33.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
32.1%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
318
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 33.3% of all recorded uses (106).

Is Dong rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1991 (19)
Years since peak
34
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
35.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,738
1982

Spellings of Dong

Dong is not the most common spelling — Tony is, with 24.5% against Dong's 0.03%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Dong is used

Across 1910–2025, Dong was most concentrated in Kansas — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 552,835 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Kansas1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Dong has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Dong around the world

Where Dong ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2000–2008
    #2,507
    in 2008
  • Canada
    1999–1999
    #2,002
    in 1999
  • South Australia
    1989–2003
    #588
    in 2003

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Dong by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,738
1982
Peak year
1991
19 that year
First recorded
1956
Last recorded
2017
All-time count
318
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Dong

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

DonisDonyaeDonielDonaDontreDoniDontaiDonatDonyeDonyaDonaldoDontrelTongFongYongDontezDonelDonavynDondiDonieHongDonzelWongLong

Sibling names for Dong

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Dong

Top names of 1991, Dong's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1982Boys' names starting with D