Lawan

given name · English · Latin script

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

Lawan is a given name, most frequently recorded in Nigeria. It appears chiefly in English and English (Nigeria), written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: the first one.

rarermore common
  • NGNigeria1 in 3.2K◐
  • USUnited States1 in 1.5M
  • SESweden1 in 140K

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

≈476 ●

across 7 countries

Sources
108 ●

39K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 140K ◐

Sweden

Meaning & origin●

the first one

Sources 1

  • African Muslim Names

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Lawan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria#32522,46430K rec.—listedLawan62
PH Philippines—3183.8K rec.——Lawan31
US United States—2245K rec.1 in 1.5M224Lawan108
GB United Kingdom—163193 rec.——Lawan21
BR Brazil—153△1 rec.1 in 1.4M153Lawan2
SE Sweden—73△8 rec.1 in 140K73—6
DE Germany—7290 rec.—listedLawan27
AU Australia—4859 rec.——Lawan11
CA Canada—4060 rec.——Lawan13
KE Kenya—330 rec.——Lawan4
IN India—2016 rec.——Lawan10
MY Malaysia—19103 rec.——Lawan20

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English29K37%
  • English (Nigeria)10K14%
  • Swahili10K13%
  • Arabic7.9K10%
  • Indonesian6.2K8%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English28,51537%
English (Nigeria)10,47414%
Swahili10,24213%
Arabic7,87410%
Indonesian6,2318%

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◐

Lawan is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Indonesian given name14K records spelled Lawan3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, United States, Malaysia, Philippines

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Lâwân

  • Urdu given name4.2K records spelled Lawan4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Nigeria, India, United States, Kenya

    Languages: Urdu, Sinhala, Hindi

    Also written Làwan

  • Portuguese given name3.9K records spelled Lawan3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Philippines, United States, Nigeria

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Lawãn

50 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●

Lawan 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 sas, against, opposed to (in a fight); put up resistance

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In mwt, fish with a net (large); throw a line, angle

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In mbb, to exceed or excel over someone or something

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In kaw, match, opponent, adversary

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In zlm, opposition; an adversary

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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●

02.557.5101960197019801990200010 · 1970

Show as table
Lawan in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1954–2002
Yearrecords
19545
19567
19595
19626
19636
19655
19665
19689
19696
197010
19729
197310
19746
19755
19785
19805
19816
19825
19896
19915
19925
20027

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 22 years between 1954–2002. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

  • Wendy Palmerb. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player (born 1974)
  • Dre Kirkpatrickb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican football player (born 1989)

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 24 sources across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Lawan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020224#26,915
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2022153—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—150#30,667
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)2020128—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020119#26,915
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—73#10,532
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)201066—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)201062—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—60#10,690
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)200056—
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—49#48,657
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—44#12,823

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 · 81 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Lawan?
We estimate roughly 476 people bear Lawan (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.
In which country does Lawan have the most bearers?
Lawan is most frequently recorded in Nigeria, where it is most often spelled lawan.
How common is Lawan compared with other names?
In Nigeria, Lawan is the 325th most common given name of 146,224 given names recorded there.
Is Lawan a male or female name?
Lawan 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 Lawan mean?
Recorded meaning: the first one
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/lawan

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, “Lawan” — the 325th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Lawan parses inside a full name →