Bek
surname · Hindi · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Bek is a surname, with more bearers in India than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Hindi and Turkish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Alternative form of bey (“Turkish governor”).
- SYSyria1 in 21K◐
- EGEgypt1 in 34K
- INIndia1 in 94K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈41K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 44 ●
- 1 in 2.5K ◐
across 17 countries
recorded for this name
6.2K records
Official registry-verified
Finland
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Back in BD Bangladesh.
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●
Alternative form of bey (“Turkish governor”).
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 7 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | — | 14,073△ | 3.1K rec. | 1 in 94K | 14K | Bek | 21 |
| US United States | — | 8,762△ | 191 rec. | 1 in 38K | 8.8K | Bek | 44 |
| BR Brazil | — | 8,760 | — | 1 in 24K | 8.8K | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 3,682△ | 12 rec. | 1 in 2.8K | 3.7K | — | 5 |
| FI Finland | — | 2,261△ | 3 rec. | 1 in 2.5K | 2.3K | — | 1 |
| EG Egypt | — | 1,215 | 206 rec. | — | — | Bek | 20 |
| SY Syria | — | 1,040 | 1K rec. | — | — | Bek | 26 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 551△ | 12 rec. | 1 in 31K | 551 | — | 5 |
| PL Poland | — | 532 | — | 1 in 72K | 532 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | — | 485 | — | 1 in 22K | 485 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | — | 416 | — | 1 in 14K | 416 | — | — |
| HR Croatia | — | 357 | — | 1 in 12K | 357 | — | — |
Roughly 14K people in India bear this name (about 1 in 94K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Hindi25K37%
- Turkish10K15%
- English3.8K6%
- Polish3.7K6%
- Arabic3.6K5%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hindi | 24,522 | 37% |
| Turkish | 10,110 | 15% |
| English | 3,805 | 6% |
| Polish | 3,726 | 6% |
| Arabic | 3,586 | 5% |
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●
Bek 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.
In Polish, bleat (cry of a sheep or goat)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Turkish, 1. Sağlam, sert, katı. 2. Bey. 3. İleri gelen, sözü geçen, saygın, zengin kişi.
as a wordTDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
In trk-pro, firm, solid, stable
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In cau-tsz-pro, skin (of cattle)
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In tut-pro, a k. of fish
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 2 |
| 1901 | 2 |
| 1921 | 1 |
| 1931 | 1 |
| 1951 | 10 |
| 1961 | 9 |
| 1971 | 13 |
| 1981 | 6 |
| 1991 | 12 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 9 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Józef Beckb. 1894PLnot in their usual namePolish diplomat and military officer (1894-1944)
- Aaron Temkin Beckb. 1921USnot in their usual nameAmerican psychiatrist, researcher, therapist
- Julian Beckb. 1925USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, director and writer (1925–1985)
- Curt Beckb. 1926DEnot in their usual nameGerman film actor and stage actor (1926-1993)
- Jeff Beckb. 1944GBnot in their usual nameEnglish guitarist (1944–2023)
- Ulrich Beckb. 1944DEnot in their usual nameGerman sociologist & scholar (1944–2015)
- Byron Beckb. 1945USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player (born 1945)
- Glenn Beckb. 1964USnot in their usual nameAmerican conservative political commentator
- Christophe Beckb. 1968CAnot in their usual nameCanadian composer and conductor
- Scott Beckb. 1984USnot in their usual namefilm director
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 46 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 14K | #790 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 5.8K | #268 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 551 | #3,489 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 532 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 532 | #6,146 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 523 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 523 | #6,100 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 485 | #3,132 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 484 | #2,933 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 416 | #1,059 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 387 | #56,914 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 357 | #2,171 |
Reference works 5
- 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 · 116 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Bek?
- We estimate roughly 41 thousand people bear Bek (counting its spellings and scripts) across 17 countries in our records.
- In which country does Bek have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 14 thousand people bear Bek in India, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled bek.
- Where is Bek most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Bek is densest in Finland — about 1 in 2.5 thousand people — even though India holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Bek compared with other names?
- In Afghanistan, Bek is the 599th most common surname of 11,280 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Bek mean?
- Recorded meaning: Alternative form of bey (“Turkish governor”).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bekThe 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, “Bek” — the 599th most common surname in Afghanistan. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.