Bah
surname · French · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Bah is a surname, most frequently recorded in Côte d’Ivoire, where it is the 98th most common surname. It appears chiefly in French and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Expressing contempt, disgust, or bad temper.
- MLMali1 in 362◐
- CICôte d’Ivoire1 in 878
- CHSwitzerland1 in 14K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈11K ●
- Sources
- 240 ●
- 1 in 14K ◐
across 13 countries
83K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Baah in GH Ghana.
Meaning & origin●
Expressing contempt, disgust, or bad temper.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 4 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | #98 | 21,327 | 1.1K rec. | — | 7K | Bah | 27 |
| US United States | — | 4,690 | 26K rec. | 1 in 71K | 7.6K | Bah | 240 |
| ES Spain | — | 2,972 | 1.8K rec. | 1 in 17K | 3K | Bah | 50 |
| ML Mali | #5 | 2,297 | 2.6K rec. | — | 1 | Bah | 23 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 2,250 | 1.6K rec. | — | — | Bah | 94 |
| DE Germany | — | 1,662 | 1.7K rec. | — | — | Bah | 83 |
| MY Malaysia | — | 924 | 850 rec. | — | — | Bah | 28 |
| GN Guinea | #4 | 740 | 2.8K rec. | — | 13 | Bah | 29 |
| SN Senegal | #76 | 705 | 888 rec. | — | 6 | Bah | 30 |
| BE Belgium | #191 | 685 | 4.5K rec. | 1 in 17K | 5.7K | Bah | 53 |
| MX Mexico | — | 585 | 556 rec. | — | — | Bah | 32 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 583△ | 140 rec. | 1 in 14K | 583 | Bah | 25 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- French67K45%
- English29K20%
- Spanish10K7%
- Dutch6.7K5%
- Hindi4.7K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| French | 66,674 | 45% |
| English | 29,098 | 20% |
| Spanish | 10,425 | 7% |
| Dutch | 6,728 | 5% |
| Hindi | 4,730 | 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●
Bah 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.
Diallo
as a nameA Handbook of African Names
In Khmer, to sell in large quantity and with limited profit. CylotOICLJ to throw (away), to abandon. CLflUglU to vote, to elect. o CqiUginawSwn&nCqi to vote to select a deputy, to elect a representative. fnj EipS m universal franchise. ° fflf CqpS CglUHftHnOJ limited franchise. ° election time
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, to rise, to stand up, to become erect (as a dog’s tail, ear, etc.). {see: UU° J UoCipJ to rebel, to revolt; to riot; revolting, protesting
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, uneven, warped, having one side lower than the other
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Khmer, to fix, to plant, to force in; to imprint
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1941 | 1 |
| 1951 | 7 |
| 1961 | 38 |
| 1971 | 144 |
| 1981 | 316 |
| 1991 | 439 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 6 years between 1941–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Johann Christoph Bach IIIb. 1671DEnot in their usual nameOrganist in Ohrdruf
- Johann Sebastian Bachb. 1685DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer (1685–1750)
- Anna Magdalena Bachb. 1701DEnot in their usual nameGerman singer and the second wife of Johann Sebastian Bach (1701-1760)
- Wilhelm Friedemann Bachb. 1710DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer, organist, harpsichordist (1710-1784)
- Johann Christoph Friedrich Bachb. 1732DEnot in their usual nameGerman musician and composer (1732–1795)
- Johann Christian Bachb. 1735DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer (1735–1782)
- Erich von dem Bach-Zelewskib. 1899DEnot in their usual nameGerman politician and SS functionary (1899–1972)
- Richard Bachb. 1936USnot in their usual nameAmerican spiritual writer (born 1936)
- Barbara Bachb. 1946USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Thomas Bachb. 1953DEnot in their usual nameGerman fencer, lawyer and sports official; 9th president of the International Olympic Committee since 2013
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 53 sources across 31 countries.
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 · 161 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Bah?
- We estimate roughly 11 thousand people bear Bah (counting its spellings and scripts) across 13 countries in our records.
- In which country does Bah have the most bearers?
- Bah is most frequently recorded in Côte d’Ivoire, where it is most often spelled bah.
- How common is Bah compared with other names?
- In Côte d’Ivoire, Bah is the 98th most common surname of 19,557 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Bah mean?
- Recorded meaning: Expressing contempt, disgust, or bad temper.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bahThe 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, “Bah” — the 98th most common surname in Côte d’Ivoire. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.