General Douglas MacArthur (Photo: Public Domain)
An article recently published on the site Politico.com explores the frequency of the name “Doug” amongst politicians. The article reveals a camaraderie amongst people with the name “Doug”, and there are many of them. The author, Sam Stein, also interviewed American Name Society Past President Cleveland Evans. On the history of the name “Doug”, Stein writes:
“The name Doug or Douglas traces back to Douglas Water, a tributary of the River Clyde in Scotland. Cleveland Evans, professor emeritus of Psychology at Bellevue University and America’s foremost expert on names, said it became common in both the USA and Canada in the 1940s and 1950s. The predominant theory was that parents in that era saw it as a “‘different but not too different’ shift from the previously popular Donald, another D- name with Scottish roots.” (Trump, since you’re now wondering, was born in 1946.)”