Delores
- Pronunciation
- [De-lo-res]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Dolores Meaning Sorrows.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Delores
Delores is a variant spelling of Dolores, the Spanish name derived from the devotional title Nuestra Señora de los Dolores — "Our Lady of Sorrows" — a Marian title in Catholic tradition. The Spanish word dolores comes from the Latin dolor, meaning "pain" or "sorrow." As a variant of Dolores, Delores shares this devotional heritage but represents an anglicized respelling that softened the name for English-speaking American ears, removing the distinctly Spanish orthography while preserving the sound. The meaning, while literally "sorrows," carries the spiritual weight of Marian piety — it was understood as an act of devotion rather than an expression of grief, connecting the bearer to the compassion of the Virgin Mary.
Delores first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 1928 and peaked in 1934 at rank #51, its chart run concentrated in the 1930s and early 1940s. It accumulated nearly 59,000 top-1000 births before dropping out of the top-1000 in 1944. That final year it still ranked #97, indicating it remained a genuinely popular choice through the mid-1940s.
The name's three syllables give it a gentle, flowing quality, and its Catholic devotional roots connect it to a rich tradition of Spanish and Latin American feminine naming. The recorded variant Deloris represents yet another anglicized respelling of the same Marian source.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Delores
US Popularity History (1928–1944)
Annual US births named Delores by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1932 with 4,152 girls named Delores (girl rank #56 that year).
Where it stands today: in 1944, ranked #97 for girls (2,756 US births). That's 41 places below its 1932 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Delores Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 1947–1956 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Delores the strongest states are Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Delaware | #73 | 31 |
| 2 | Virginia | #74 | 786 |
| 3 | South Carolina | #75 | 888 |
| 4 | Florida | #77 | 419 |
| 5 | District of Columbia | #79 | 280 |
| 6 | Maryland | #79 | 349 |
| 7 | Louisiana | #80 | 714 |
| 8 | West Virginia | #80 | 374 |
| 9 | North Carolina | #83 | 757 |
| 10 | Georgia | #85 | 708 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kansas | #99 | 111 |
| 2 | Tennessee | #92 | 567 |
| 3 | Nebraska | #90 | 96 |
| 4 | Mississippi | #89 | 693 |
| 5 | Missouri | #86 | 269 |
| 6 | Georgia | #85 | 708 |
| 7 | North Carolina | #83 | 757 |
| 8 | West Virginia | #80 | 374 |
| 9 | Louisiana | #80 | 714 |
| 10 | Maryland | #79 | 349 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 1947–1956. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Delores in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deloris | Variant Of Dolores Meaning Sorrows. | Female | English |
Looking for names like Delores?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Delores to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Delores against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).