Ganesh

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled คเนตร in TH Thailand.

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●

Languages●

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◐

Ganesh is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Arabic given name16K records spelled Ganesh3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar

  Languages: Arabic, Hebrew

  Also written גאנש

• French given name2.9K records spelled Ganesh6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, India, United States, Spain

  Languages: French, Catalan

  Also written Ganesha, Ganésha, Ganèsha, Gåņeşh

• Polish given name1.8K records spelled Ganesh4 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Poland, India, United States, Czechia

  Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

  Also written Ğáňêšh

• Russian given name1.2K records spelled Ganesh7 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Russia, Türkiye

  Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

  Also written Ганеш, Gâñêsh

• Croatian given name1.0K records spelled Ganesh21 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, United States, Croatia, United Kingdom

  Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian

  Also written Ganas, Ganes, Ганеш, Ганас, Ganeš

• Malayalam surname774 records spelled Ganesh19 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in India, Singapore

  Languages: Malayalam, Tamil

  Also written Ganes, கணேஷ், Gaṇēś, கணேஸ், ഗണേഷ്

35 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.

Other recorded senses●

Ganesh is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• Hindu name from Sanskrit ganesa ‘lord of the army’ (from gana ‘army’ + Tsa), an epithet of the elephant-headed god who is the son of Shiva. Among Tamil and Malayalam speakers who have migrated from their home states it is a variant of Ganesan. It is found only as a male given name in India, but used as a family name in the U.S. among South Indians.

  as a name·Dictionary of American Family Names

• El señor de las multitudes

  as a name·25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado

• son of Shiva and Parvati

  as a name·A Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India

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●

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 107 years between 1899–2017. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Ganesh Duttb. 1868INIndian administrator
• Ganesh Prasadb. 1876INIndian mathematician (1876-1935)
• Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankarb. 1888INIndian politician (1888–1956)
• Ganesh Rango Bhideb. 1909Indian encylopaedist (1909–1981)
• Ganesh Haloib. 1936INIndian artist (born 1936)
• Ganesh Patrob. 1945INIndian film writer (1945-2015)
• Ganesh Acharyab. 1971INIndian choreographer and occasional film actor active in Bollywood
• Ganesh Hegdeb. 1974INIndian singer, performer, video director and choreographer
• Ganesh Venkatramanb. 1980INIndian actor
• Ganesh YadavINIndian actor

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 356 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ganesh?

We estimate roughly 4.6 thousand people bear Ganesh (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.

In which country does Ganesh have the most bearers?

Ganesh is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled ganesh.

Where is Ganesh most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Ganesh is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 692 people — even though India holds more of our records for it.

How common is Ganesh compared with other names?

In India, Ganesh is the 90th most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.

Is Ganesh a male or female name?

Ganesh 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 Ganesh mean?

Recorded meaning: Sanskrit: ‘lord of the hosts’, a title of the god Shiva and the name of his eldest son, who has the head of an elephant and the body of a short fat imp with a huge belly.