Abu
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Abu is a surname, most frequently recorded in Bangladesh, where it is the 78th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Bangla, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father).
- JOJordan1 in 204◐
- MYMalaysia1 in 469
- BDBangladesh1 in 639
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈6.1K ●
- 3 ●
- Sources
- 224 ●
- 1 in 19K ◐
across 8 countries
recorded for this name
454K records
Official registry-verified
Kazakhstan
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Абу in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, KG Kyrgyzstan.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father). Comp. Umm |, mother
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of Muslim Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BD Bangladesh | #78 | 407,924 | 21K rec. | — | listed | Abu | 149 |
| MY Malaysia | #21 | 117,167 | 94K rec. | — | — | Abu | 113 |
| NG Nigeria | #293 | 17,468 | 29K rec. | — | listed | Abu | 70 |
| IL Israel | #188 | 15,922 | 19K rec. | — | — | Abu | 83 |
| JO Jordan | #2 | 13,449 | 16K rec. | — | — | Abu | 114 |
| EG Egypt | #215 | 11,299 | 9.4K rec. | — | — | Abu | 81 |
| SY Syria | #96 | 10,340 | 17K rec. | — | — | Abu | 28 |
| ID Indonesia | #924 | 7,446 | 7.2K rec. | — | — | Abu | 137 |
| RU Russia | — | 6,656 | 8.9K rec. | — | #1,025 | Абу | 97 |
| TR Türkiye | — | 4,239 | 5.9K rec. | — | — | Abu | 30 |
| DE Germany | — | 4,167 | 7.8K rec. | — | 1 | Abu | 124 |
| PK Pakistan | #515 | 4,032 | 3.6K rec. | — | listed | Abu | 66 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English256K35%
- Bangla222K30%
- Malay80K11%
- Arabic66K9%
- Indonesian19K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 255,553 | 35% |
| Bangla | 222,027 | 30% |
| Malay | 79,700 | 11% |
| Arabic | 65,698 | 9% |
| Indonesian | 19,423 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Abu is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Hanifah fatner of a pious woman.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
Y'áqub ترقعلولا father of Ya’qub.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
In English, A language of Papua New Guinea.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Indonesian, ash (solid remains of a fire)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Nobility
as a nameThe book of African names
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1916 | 1 |
| 1917 | 2 |
| 1918 | 2 |
| 1920 | 2 |
| 1922 | 4 |
| 1923 | 4 |
| 1924 | 4 |
| 1925 | 1 |
| 1926 | 1 |
| 1927 | 2 |
| 1928 | 2 |
| 1929 | 1 |
| 1930 | 5 |
| 1931 | 5 |
| 1932 | 9 |
| 1933 | 5 |
| 1934 | 3 |
| 1935 | 7 |
| 1936 | 5 |
| 1937 | 7 |
| 1938 | 8 |
| 1939 | 5 |
| 1940 | 16 |
| 1941 | 14 |
| 1942 | 18 |
| 1943 | 10 |
| 1944 | 15 |
| 1945 | 20 |
| 1946 | 16 |
| 1947 | 31 |
| 1948 | 20 |
| 1949 | 8 |
| 1950 | 28 |
| 1951 | 44 |
| 1952 | 43 |
| 1953 | 26 |
| 1954 | 42 |
| 1955 | 49 |
| 1956 | 44 |
| 1957 | 54 |
| 1958 | 44 |
| 1959 | 61 |
| 1960 | 49 |
| 1961 | 60 |
| 1962 | 81 |
| 1963 | 53 |
| 1964 | 83 |
| 1965 | 76 |
| 1966 | 89 |
| 1967 | 101 |
| 1968 | 85 |
| 1969 | 84 |
| 1970 | 111 |
| 1971 | 89 |
| 1972 | 119 |
| 1973 | 113 |
| 1974 | 121 |
| 1975 | 109 |
| 1976 | 132 |
| 1977 | 128 |
| 1978 | 143 |
| 1979 | 174 |
| 1980 | 77 |
| 1981 | 185 |
| 1982 | 208 |
| 1983 | 191 |
| 1984 | 242 |
| 1985 | 244 |
| 1986 | 152 |
| 1987 | 251 |
| 1988 | 278 |
| 1989 | 247 |
| 1990 | 298 |
| 1991 | 354 |
| 1992 | 386 |
| 1993 | 498 |
| 1994 | 391 |
| 1995 | 290 |
| 1996 | 148 |
| 1997 | 179 |
| 1998 | 133 |
| 1999 | 17 |
| 2008 | 48 |
| 2009 | 1 |
| 2010 | 25 |
| 2011 | 3 |
| 2012 | 7 |
| 2013 | 4 |
| 2014 | 91 |
| 2015 | 14 |
IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 90 years between 1916–2015. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Ahmad Abu Labanb. 1946PSPalestinian-Danish imam
- Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzookb. 1951PSHamas leader
- Hanan Abu Huseinb. 1972ILIsraeli artist
- Eva Abu Halawehb. 1975JOJordanian human rights activist
- Dalal Abu Amnehb. 1983ILArab-Palestinian singer and neuroscientist
- Dareen Abu Ghaidab. 1984CAAnchorwoman
- Murad Abu Anzab. 1986ILArab-Bedouin-Israeli association footballer
- Mohammed Abub. 1991GHGhanaian professional footballer
- Abdul-Malik Abub. 1995USNigerian basketball player (born 1995)
- Avi Aburomib. 1996ILnot in their usual nameArab-Israeli Muslim singer who converted to Judaism
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 69 sources across 34 countries.
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 336 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Abu?
- We estimate roughly 6.1 thousand people bear Abu (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
- In which country does Abu have the most bearers?
- Abu is most frequently recorded in Bangladesh, where it is most often spelled abu.
- How common is Abu compared with other names?
- In Bangladesh, Abu is the 78th most common surname of 11,292 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Abu mean?
- Recorded meaning: father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/abuThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Abu” — the 78th most common surname in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.