BUG: Preserve column names in DataFrame.from_records when nrows=0

doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst

@@ -801,6 +801,7 @@ I/O
 - Bug in :meth:`.DataFrame.to_json` when ``"index"`` was a value in the :attr:`DataFrame.column` and :attr:`Index.name` was ``None``. Now, this will fail with a ``ValueError`` (:issue:`58925`)
 - Bug in :meth:`.io.common.is_fsspec_url` not recognizing chained fsspec URLs (:issue:`48978`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame._repr_html_` which ignored the ``"display.float_format"`` option (:issue:`59876`)
+- Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.from_records` ignoring ``columns`` parameter when ``data`` is an iterator and ``nrows=0``. (:issue:`61140`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.from_records` where ``columns`` parameter with numpy structured array was not reordering and filtering out the columns (:issue:`59717`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.to_dict` raises unnecessary ``UserWarning`` when columns are not unique and ``orient='tight'``. (:issue:`58281`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.to_excel` when writing empty :class:`DataFrame` with :class:`MultiIndex` on both axes (:issue:`57696`)

pandas/core/frame.py

@@ -2234,7 +2234,7 @@ def maybe_reorder(
 
         if is_iterator(data):
             if nrows == 0:
-                return cls()
+                return cls(columns=columns)
 
             try:
                 first_row = next(data)

pandas/tests/frame/constructors/test_from_records.py

@@ -492,3 +492,10 @@ def test_from_records_structured_array(self):
         expected_result = DataFrame(modified_data)
 
         tm.assert_frame_equal(actual_result, expected_result)
+
+    def test_from_records_empty_iterator_with_preserve_columns(self):
+        # GH#61140
+        rows = []
+        result = DataFrame.from_records(iter(rows), columns=["col_1", "Col_2"], nrows=0)
+        expected = DataFrame([], columns=["col_1", "Col_2"])
+        tm.assert_frame_equal(result, expected)