Besnik

given name · Albanian · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Besnik is a given name, with more bearers in Albania than in any other country, where it is the 17th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Albanian and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From besnik ("loyal"), compound of besë ("given word, trust"), + suffix -nik.

rarermore common
  • XKKosovo1 in 352◐
  • ALAlbania1 in 567
  • MKNorth Macedonia1 in 1.2K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈8.3K ●

across 12 countries

3 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
90 ●

21K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 567 ◐

Albania

Spellings & scripts●

BesnikLatin · Albanian●28K records
БесникCyrillic · Macedonian●1.8K records
ΜπεσνικGreek · Greek●0 records

Locally spelled Бесник in MK North Macedonia.

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●

From besnik ("loyal"), compound of besë ("given word, trust"), + suffix -nik.

Sources 1

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Besnik is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AL Albania#175,42215K rec.1 in 5675.4KBesnik60
MK North Macedonia#2021,759△20 rec.1 in 1.2K1.8KБесник14
XK Kosovo#111,3411.1K rec.—7KBesnik12
IT Italy—591571 rec.—4Besnik23
US United States—5231.3K rec.1 in 636K523Besnik90
GB United Kingdom—39699 rec.——Besnik33
CH Switzerland—326210 rec.——Besnik21
SE Sweden—271△57 rec.1 in 38K271Besnik17
GR Greece—179116 rec.——Besnik19
SI Slovenia#937129197 rec.1 in 16K129Besnik4
RS Serbia—9629 rec.—listedBesnik12
BE Belgium—9264 rec.——Besnik12

Roughly 5.4K people in Albania bear this name (about 1 in 567). 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●

  • Albanian28K77%
  • German2.3K6%
  • English1.2K3%
  • French9163%
  • Croatian8562%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Albanian27,93777%
German2,2626%
English1,2213%
French9163%
Croatian8562%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Besnik is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German given name4.1K records spelled Besnik6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Austria, United Kingdom

    Languages: German, English, Dutch

    Also written Bèsnik

  • Slovak given name60 records spelled Besnik4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Slovakia, Czechia

    Languages: Slovak, Czech

    Also written Besník

30 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Over time●

010020030040019401960198020002020384 · 1987

Show as table
Besnik in ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search), Kosovo, 1934–2025
Yearrecords
19341
19381
19391
19401
19431
19453
19464
19471
19492
19501
19515
19521
19535
195411
19553
19566
19579
19584
195912
196020
196120
196231
196335
196430
196530
196634
196748
196857
196959
197061
197193
197294
197376
1974111
1975143
1976175
1977179
1978198
1979213
1980216
1981254
1982269
1983308
1984308
1985333
1986371
1987384
1988353
1989339
1990277
1991268
1992215
1993184
1994143
1995125
1996111
1997125
199894
199969
200071
200157
200255
200331
200441
200539
200616
200724
200820
200913
201015
201113
201210
20138
20149
20156
20166
20176
20182
20195
20206
20218
20222
20238
20248
20252

XK ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) — 85 years between 1934–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1940196019802000Besnik Bekteshi, b. 1941Besnik Mustafaj, b. 1958Besnik Bisha, b. 1958Besnik Bilali, b. 1963Besnik Hasi, b. 1971Besnik Musaj, b. 1973Besnik Zukaj, b. 1978Besnik Krasniqi, b. 1990

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 32 sources across 18 countries.

Official registers attesting Besnik
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)—7K#20
AL AlbaniaINSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts)—5.4K#19
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020523#19,898
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1987384—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1986371—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1988353—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1989339—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1985333—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1984308—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1983308—
XK KosovoASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search)1990277—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—276#3,786

Reference works 3

  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name 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 · 183 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Besnik?
We estimate roughly 8.3 thousand people bear Besnik (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
In which country does Besnik have the most bearers?
We estimate about 5.4 thousand people bear Besnik in Albania, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled besnik.
How common is Besnik compared with other names?
In Albania, Besnik is the 17th most common given name of 12,508 given names recorded there.
Is Besnik a male or female name?
Besnik is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Besnik mean?
Recorded meaning: From besnik ("loyal"), compound of besë ("given word, trust"), + suffix -nik.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/besnik

The 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

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

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, “Besnik” — the 17th most common given name in Albania. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Besnik parses inside a full name →