The orientation dependence of dislocation damping in the five hexagonal metals Mg, Cd, Be, Zn, and Ti has been predicted by calculation of the appropriate factors relating the stress field of the elastic waves to the slip systems in which the dislocations are moving. The four metals having basal slip systems have very similar qualitative behavior of the orientation factors. Titanium, with prismatic slip systems, has a quite different behavior and the orientation factors are smaller for all orientations than the values for the basal slip metals. For Zn, Cd, Mg, and Ti, the values of the orientation factors for standing waves (resonance technique) are larger than the corresponding values for the traveling waves (pulse‐echo technique). For Be, the orientation factors for both types of waves are nearly equal. Crystal orientations and wave types of particular interest for experimental study are delineated.