Bongani
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Bongani is a given name, most frequently recorded in South Africa, where it is the 12th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Sing with joy.
- ZASouth Africa1 in 611◐
- SZEswatini1 in 164
- ZWZimbabwe1 in 19K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈18 ●
- Sources
- 89 ●
- 1 in 928K ◐
across 2 countries
58K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Meaning & origin●
Sing with joy
Sources 1
- The book of African 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | #12 | 55,515 | 57K rec. | — | — | Bongani | 89 |
| US United States | — | 321 | 326 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 45 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 201 | 161 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 34 |
| IN India | — | 180 | 102 rec. | — | 114 | Bongani | 7 |
| AU Australia | — | 88 | 84 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 20 |
| ZW Zimbabwe | #879 | 45 | 15 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 16 |
| FI Finland | — | 40 | 1 rec. | — | 20 | Bongani | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | 38 | 34 rec. | — | 1 | Bongani | 13 |
| SZ Eswatini | #2 | 37 | 19 rec. | — | 72 | Bongani | 12 |
| CA Canada | — | 12 | 14 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 7 |
| SE Sweden | — | 11△ | 2 rec. | 1 in 928K | 11 | — | 1 |
| FR France | — | 8 | 16 rec. | — | — | Bongani | 12 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English32K48%
- Swahili9.3K14%
- English (South Africa)8.8K13%
- Hindi2.1K3%
- Danish2K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 32,228 | 48% |
| Swahili | 9,322 | 14% |
| English (South Africa) | 8,774 | 13% |
| Hindi | 2,130 | 3% |
| Danish | 2,027 | 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●
Bongani is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, aus Südafrika stammender männl.
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Be grateful to God
as a nameThe African book of 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.
Notable people with this name●
- Bongani Bongob. 1978ZASouth African politician
- Bongani Madondob. 1981ZASouth African actor
- Bongani von Bodensteinb. 1997ZAbadminton player
- Bongani Gumedeactor
- Bongani MajolaZASouth African jurist
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 13 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 146 | #17,575 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 114 | #26,123 |
| SZ Eswatini | Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots | 2023 | 72 | #1 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 20 | #24,487 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 20 | #26,071 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 11 | #33,403 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 7 | #13,315 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 7 | #13,271 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 2 | #8,873 |
| LS Lesotho | Lesotho IEC 2022 National Assembly candidate lists | 2022 | 1 | #20 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2013 | 1 | — |
| NG Nigeria | The African Book of Names (Hodari, 2003) | — | — | — |
Reference works 1
- 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 · 14 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Bongani?
- We estimate roughly 18 people bear Bongani (counting its spellings and scripts) across 2 countries in our records.
- In which country does Bongani have the most bearers?
- Bongani is most frequently recorded in South Africa, where it is most often spelled bongani.
- How common is Bongani compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Bongani is the 12th most common given name of 215,346 given names recorded there.
- Is Bongani a male or female name?
- Bongani 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 Bongani mean?
- Recorded meaning: Sing with joy
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bonganiThe 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, “Bongani” — the 12th most common given name in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.