Ion
given name · Hungarian · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Ion is a given name, most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is the 2nd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Hungarian and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Possibly Greek Jon, 'moon man'; also explained as a variant of Ian, though this is doubtful.
- CUCuba1 in 12◐
- GTGuatemala1 in 16
- CZCzechia1 in 18
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈11M ●
- #3 ●
- 14 ●
- Sources
- 659 ●
- 1 in 18 ◐
across 12 countries
of 16M given names
recorded for this name
100M records
Official registry-verified
Czechia
Spellings & scripts●
13 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Juan in AR Argentina, ES Spain, MX Mexico and 6 more, John in US United States, GB United Kingdom, PH Philippines and 5 more, Jan in PL Poland, CZ Czechia, DK Denmark and 1 more and Sebastian in DE Germany, EC Ecuador.
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●
Possibly Greek Jon, 'moon man'; also explained as a variant of Ian, though this is doubtful.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 19 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | #2 | 12,961,300 | 7.5M rec. | — | 5.7K | Juan | 239 |
| MX Mexico | #3 | 5,288,311 | 4.2M rec. | — | 4.7K | Juan | 302 |
| GB United Kingdom | #1 | 4,533,251 | 4M rec. | — | 1.1K | John | 396 |
| BR Brazil | #3 | 3,430,608 | 4.4M rec. | 1 in 62 | 3.4M | Joao | 248 |
| PE Peru | #4 | 3,194,653 | 2.3M rec. | — | 555K | Juan | 176 |
| US United States | #2 | 3,118,620 | 55M rec. | 1 in 107 | 3.1M | John | 659 |
| VE Venezuela | #8 | 2,400,453 | 870K rec. | — | 21K | Juan | 160 |
| GT Guatemala | #3 | 2,227,734 | 180K rec. | — | 3.1K | Juan | 142 |
| PH Philippines | #3 | 2,098,130 | 1.4M rec. | — | listed | John | 240 |
| AU Australia | #1 | 1,965,730 | 1.7M rec. | — | 570 | John | 410 |
| CO Colombia | #2 | 1,937,062 | 665K rec. | — | 1.2K | Juan | 277 |
| FR France | #1 | 1,910,400 | 4.1M rec. | 1 in 36 | 1.9M | Jean | 474 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Hungarian673K53%
- English349K27%
- Romanian158K12%
- Spanish38K3%
- French14K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hungarian | 673,060 | 53% |
| English | 349,215 | 27% |
| Romanian | 158,093 | 12% |
| Spanish | 37,897 | 3% |
| French | 14,013 | 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●
Ion 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 Romanian, IÓN, ioni, s. m. Atom, moleculă sau grupare de atomi care are un exces de sarcină electrică pozitivă sau negativă. [Pr.: i-on].
as a wordDEX online (dexonline.ro) - DEX '96 / DEX '98 definitions with etymology
In English, island, Scotland; college, NY
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, dialogue of Plato; eponymous
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Eugene, French playwright
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, ancestor of lonians
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1928 | 5 |
| 1966 | 5 |
| 1968 | 5 |
| 1969 | 7 |
| 1972 | 6 |
| 1973 | 6 |
| 1974 | 5 |
| 1975 | 8 |
| 1979 | 6 |
| 1980 | 6 |
| 1982 | 8 |
| 1984 | 6 |
| 1991 | 5 |
| 1993 | 5 |
| 1994 | 6 |
| 1995 | 5 |
| 1996 | 6 |
| 1998 | 8 |
| 1999 | 5 |
| 2000 | 7 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2002 | 7 |
| 2003 | 8 |
| 2007 | 9 |
| 2008 | 8 |
| 2009 | 5 |
| 2010 | 6 |
| 2011 | 5 |
| 2012 | 6 |
| 2013 | 9 |
| 2014 | 11 |
| 2015 | 11 |
| 2016 | 8 |
| 2017 | 6 |
| 2018 | 12 |
| 2019 | 13 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 9 |
| 2022 | 5 |
| 2023 | 15 |
| 2024 | 9 |
| 2025 | 14 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 42 years between 1928–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Ion C. Brătianub. 1821RORomanian politician (1821–1891)
- Ion Creangăb. 1837ROMoldavian - born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher
- Ion Ivanovicib. 1845RORomanian military band leader and composer (1845–1902)
- Ion Luca Caragialeb. 1852RORomanian playwright, writer and poet (1852-1912)
- Ion Antonescub. 1882ROprime minister of Romania during World War II; self-proclaimed "Leader" of the Romanian state between 1940–1944, executed for war crimes (1882–1946)
- Ion Gheorghe Maurerb. 1902RO49th Prime Minister of Romania (1961-1974)
- Ion Iliescub. 1930ROPresident of Romania (1990–1996; 2000–2004)
- Ion Caramitrub. 1942RORomanian political and cultural personality
- Marcel Ciolacub. 1967ROnot in their usual nameRomanian politician
- Ion Chicub. 1972MDMoldovan politician
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 73 sources across 38 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RO Romania | DEPABD — name-day population snapshot | 2023 | 336K | — |
| RO Romania | DEPABD — resident population names | 2023 | 336K | — |
| MD Moldova | e-services.md — living population register | — | 100K | #2 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 8K | #298 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 7.9K | #640 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 3.2K | #273 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2.9K | #282 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.7K | #8,461 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 1.7K | #2,837 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1.7K | #2,836 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 838 | #1,829 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 649 | #36,981 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 231 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ion?
- We estimate roughly 11 million people bear Ion (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ion have the most bearers?
- Ion is most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is most often spelled juan.
- How common is Ion compared with other names?
- In Argentina, Ion is the 2nd most common given name of 517,176 given names recorded there.
- Is Ion a male or female name?
- Ion 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 Ion mean?
- Recorded meaning: Possibly Greek Jon, 'moon man'; also explained as a variant of Ian, though this is doubtful.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ionThe 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, “Ion” — the 2nd most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.