Emeka
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Emeka is a given name, most frequently recorded in Nigeria, where it is the 80th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Great deed.
- NGNigeria1 in 1.1K◐
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 122K
- USUnited States1 in 297K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.4K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 235 ●
- 1 in 58K ◐
across 8 countries
recorded for this name
100K records
Official registry-verified
Guyana
Spellings & scripts●
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●
Great deed.
Sources 1
- The African book of 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #80 | 68,579 | 84K rec. | — | listed | Emeka | 153 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,695 | 1.2K rec. | — | listed | Emeka | 101 |
| US United States | — | 1,120 | 11K rec. | 1 in 297K | 1.1K | Emeka | 235 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 713 | 820 rec. | — | — | Emeka | 31 |
| DE Germany | — | 294 | 323 rec. | — | 1 | Emeka | 49 |
| CA Canada | — | 291 | 299 rec. | — | 1 | Emeka | 64 |
| AU Australia | — | 230 | 235 rec. | — | 1 | Emeka | 35 |
| TR Türkiye | — | 215 | 227 rec. | — | — | Emeka | 13 |
| MY Malaysia | — | 155 | 60 rec. | — | — | Emeka | 16 |
| IT Italy | — | 142 | 187 rec. | — | — | Emeka | 24 |
| KE Kenya | — | 138 | 4 rec. | — | — | Emeka | 9 |
| SE Sweden | — | 84△ | 14 rec. | 1 in 121K | 84 | — | 11 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English77K78%
- Swahili11K11%
- Spanish1.1K1%
- Arabic1.1K1%
- Vietnamese9481%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 77,139 | 78% |
| Swahili | 10,827 | 11% |
| Spanish | 1,149 | 1% |
| Arabic | 1,054 | 1% |
| Vietnamese | 948 | 1% |
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●
Emeka is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In mch, to have children one after the other
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1974 | 6 |
| 1976 | 5 |
| 1977 | 7 |
| 1978 | 14 |
| 1979 | 5 |
| 1980 | 8 |
| 1981 | 5 |
| 1982 | 6 |
| 1983 | 15 |
| 1984 | 10 |
| 1985 | 7 |
| 1986 | 12 |
| 1987 | 11 |
| 1988 | 6 |
| 1989 | 8 |
| 1990 | 8 |
| 1991 | 16 |
| 1992 | 7 |
| 1993 | 9 |
| 1994 | 15 |
| 1995 | 8 |
| 1996 | 10 |
| 1997 | 10 |
| 1998 | 15 |
| 1999 | 10 |
| 2000 | 7 |
| 2001 | 10 |
| 2002 | 13 |
| 2003 | 12 |
| 2004 | 16 |
| 2005 | 10 |
| 2006 | 12 |
| 2007 | 10 |
| 2008 | 13 |
| 2009 | 10 |
| 2010 | 10 |
| 2011 | 7 |
| 2012 | 9 |
| 2013 | 13 |
| 2014 | 5 |
| 2015 | 11 |
| 2016 | 10 |
| 2017 | 10 |
| 2018 | 8 |
| 2020 | 8 |
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2022 | 8 |
| 2023 | 13 |
| 2024 | 9 |
| 2025 | 9 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 50 years between 1974–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Emeka Anyaokub. 1933NGNigerian chief and diplomat
- Emeka Enejereb. 1944NGNigerian academic and political scientist
- Emeka Ezeugob. 1965NGNigerian footballer
- Emeka Ifejiagwab. 1977NGNigerian footballer
- Emeka Okaforb. 1982USAmerican basketball player (born 1982)
- Emeka Oparab. 1984NGNigerian footballer
- Emeka Ezeb. 1992NGNigerian association football player
- Emeka Enelib. 1999USAmerican soccer player
- Richard Emeka Fridayb. 2000NGNigerian association football player
- Emeka Basilb. 2001NGNigerian association football player (2001-)
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 41 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.1K | #11,031 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 178 | #106,589 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 102 | #158,432 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 90 | #5,481 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 84 | #9,643 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 60 | #11,031 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 54 | #1,123 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 44 | #31,013 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 41 | #15,033 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 35 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 31 | #4,326 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 29 | #65,712 |
Reference works 2
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 · 128 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Emeka?
- We estimate roughly 1.4 thousand people bear Emeka (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
- In which country does Emeka have the most bearers?
- Emeka is most frequently recorded in Nigeria, where it is most often spelled emeka.
- How common is Emeka compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Emeka is the 80th most common given name of 146,224 given names recorded there.
- Is Emeka a male or female name?
- Emeka 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 Emeka mean?
- Recorded meaning: Great deed.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/emekaThe 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, “Emeka” — the 80th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.