Ismaila

given name · English · Latin script

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

Ismaila is a given name, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Ishmael.

rarermore common
  • ESSpain1 in 95K
  • SESweden1 in 193K
  • ISIceland1 in 351K

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

≈970

across 9 countries

Sources
7

76 records

Reference-verified

1 in 95K

Spain

Meaning & origin

Ishmael

Sources 1

  • African Muslim Names

Where in the world

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

Where Ismaila is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ES Spain5271 in 95K527
US United States3011 in 1.1M301
BR Brazil671 in 3.2M67
SE Sweden531 in 193K53
NG Nigeria3374 rec.listedIsmaila7
FI Finland81 in 696K45
PL Poland81 in 4.8M8
DK Denmark41 in 1.5M4
MD Moldova11 in 3.4M1
IS Iceland11 in 351K1
CI Côte d’Ivoire153
NO Norway36

Roughly 527 people in Spain bear this name (about 1 in 95K). 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

  • English34K50%
  • Swahili11K16%
  • French6.1K9%
  • Arabic3.3K5%
  • Indonesian2.4K4%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English34,26750%
Swahili10,84516%
French6,1109%
Arabic3,2785%
Indonesian2,3794%

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

Ismaila is also recorded as 9 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name62K records spelled Ismaila9 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Ismaïla, Ismai'La, Isma-Ila, Îsmâîlâ, Ìsmãįlā

  • Swahili given name20K records spelled Ismaila5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, United States, Senegal, Ghana

    Also written Isma-Ila, Ismaïla, Isma'Ila

  • French given name8.6K records spelled Ismaila13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Senegal, United States, Spain

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Ismaïla, Ismaîla, Ismãîlä, Ismaíla, Ismàïlà

  • Arabic given name7.1K records spelled Ismaila7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, United States, Senegal, Cameroon

    Languages: Arabic, Amharic

    Also written Ismaïla, Isma-Ila, Ismaîla, Isma'Ila

  • Indonesian given name4.4K records spelled Ismaila7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, Spain, Indonesia, India

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Ismaïla, Isma'Ila, Ismaìla

  • Hindi given name3.9K records spelled Ismaila7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, India, United States, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu, Sinhala

    Also written Ismāīla, Ismaïla

  • Spanish given name3.5K records spelled Ismaila6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, Brazil, Nigeria, United States

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Ismaïla, Ísmãïlã, Ismaíla

  • Japanese given name913 records spelled Ismaila2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, United States

    Also written Ïsmaila

  • Assamese given name717 records spelled Ismaila3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Nigeria

    Languages: Assamese, Bangla

    Also written ইসমাইলা

47 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

01020304020002005201020152020

Show as table
Ismaila in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199911
200013
200114
200214
200316
200416
200517
200616
200718
200819
200919
201020
201120
201223
201324
201423
201524
201628
201729
201834
201934
202037

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name

1940196019802000Mabo Ismaila, b. 1944Ismaila Lassissi, b. 1969Ismaïla N'Diaye, b. 1988Ismaila Jome, b. 1994Ismaïla Sarr, b. 1998Ismaila Coulibaly, b. 2000

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 38 sources across 22 countries.

Official registers attesting Ismaila
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaIndia Names Dataset — Andhra Pradesh Electoral Rolls (Internet Archive)557#4,796
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)527#4,404
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)424#2,367
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020301#28,814
CI Côte d’Ivoirenomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies153#2,678
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202267
BR BrazilBrasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA)67#28,952
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)62#54,512
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)54#46,622
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)53#13,182
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)200046
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)45#9,028

Reference works 5

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname 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 · 72 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ismaila?
We estimate roughly 970 people bear Ismaila (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Ismaila have the most bearers?
We estimate about 527 people bear Ismaila in Spain, more than in any other country in our records.
Where is Ismaila most common?
Ismaila is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 95 thousand people carrying it.
Is Ismaila a male or female name?
Ismaila 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 Ismaila mean?
Recorded meaning: Ishmael
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ismaila

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, “Ismaila”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Ismaila parses inside a full name →