Malu
given name · Portuguese · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Malu is a given name, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Portuguese and Hindi, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: A culturally significant tattoo on a Samoan woman's upper leg.
- BRBrazil1 in 17K◐
- PEPeru1 in 43K
- MXMexico1 in 66K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈14K ●
- Sources
- 106 ●
- 1 in 17K ◐
across 8 countries
18K records
Official registry-verified
Brazil
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Malú in GT Guatemala.
Meaning & origin●
A culturally significant tattoo on a Samoan woman's upper leg.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 12,599△ | 5.2K rec. | 1 in 17K | 13K | Malu | 106 |
| PE Peru | 5,274 | 4K rec. | — | — | Malu | 43 |
| MX Mexico | 4,823 | 4.6K rec. | — | 6 | Malu | 52 |
| AR Argentina | 1,051 | 593 rec. | — | 18 | Malu | 34 |
| CO Colombia | 633 | 508 rec. | — | — | Malu | 23 |
| CL Chile | 592 | 156 rec. | — | 2 | Malu | 27 |
| US United States | 373 | 984 rec. | 1 in 892K | 373 | Malu | 83 |
| NL Netherlands | 300△ | 15 rec. | 1 in 58K | 300 | Malu | 8 |
| IN India | 237 | 376 rec. | — | 8.2K | Malu | 13 |
| VE Venezuela | 211 | 200 rec. | — | — | Malu | 12 |
| PH Philippines | 194 | 118 rec. | — | — | Malu | 16 |
| UY Uruguay | 125 | 72 rec. | — | 1 | Malu | 9 |
Roughly 13K people in Brazil bear this name (about 1 in 17K). 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●
- Portuguese99K53%
- Hindi40K22%
- English16K9%
- Spanish14K7%
- 5.1K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Portuguese | 99,242 | 53% |
| Hindi | 40,297 | 22% |
| English | 15,896 | 9% |
| Spanish | 13,506 | 7% |
| 5,142 | 3% |
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●
Malu 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.
Emanuell, Emanuella, Emanuelle, Pacífica
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In German, weibl. Vom., Doppelform aus
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In men, v., to clear the ground of grass, bushes set
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In tuw-pro, honourable space within the house (front corner)
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In xgn-pro, vessel, basket (for grain)
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1918 | 1 |
| 1919 | 2 |
| 1920 | 1 |
| 1922 | 1 |
| 1923 | 1 |
| 1924 | 4 |
| 1925 | 5 |
| 1926 | 6 |
| 1927 | 3 |
| 1928 | 3 |
| 1929 | 6 |
| 1930 | 6 |
| 1931 | 4 |
| 1932 | 9 |
| 1933 | 11 |
| 1934 | 6 |
| 1935 | 12 |
| 1936 | 9 |
| 1937 | 18 |
| 1938 | 14 |
| 1939 | 14 |
| 1940 | 18 |
| 1941 | 23 |
| 1942 | 22 |
| 1943 | 19 |
| 1944 | 16 |
| 1945 | 27 |
| 1946 | 27 |
| 1947 | 33 |
| 1948 | 26 |
| 1949 | 18 |
| 1950 | 39 |
| 1951 | 31 |
| 1952 | 29 |
| 1953 | 31 |
| 1954 | 32 |
| 1955 | 34 |
| 1956 | 39 |
| 1957 | 33 |
| 1958 | 40 |
| 1959 | 52 |
| 1960 | 35 |
| 1961 | 38 |
| 1962 | 39 |
| 1963 | 35 |
| 1964 | 57 |
| 1965 | 57 |
| 1966 | 42 |
| 1967 | 76 |
| 1968 | 49 |
| 1969 | 50 |
| 1970 | 48 |
| 1971 | 67 |
| 1972 | 51 |
| 1973 | 57 |
| 1974 | 57 |
| 1975 | 54 |
| 1976 | 42 |
| 1977 | 53 |
| 1978 | 54 |
| 1979 | 53 |
| 1980 | 47 |
| 1981 | 47 |
| 1982 | 52 |
| 1983 | 50 |
| 1984 | 58 |
| 1985 | 44 |
| 1986 | 42 |
| 1987 | 54 |
| 1988 | 48 |
| 1989 | 50 |
| 1990 | 35 |
| 1991 | 45 |
| 1992 | 42 |
| 1993 | 57 |
| 1994 | 60 |
| 1995 | 46 |
| 1996 | 18 |
| 1997 | 18 |
| 1998 | 10 |
| 2001 | 1 |
| 2008 | 5 |
| 2009 | 2 |
| 2010 | 3 |
| 2011 | 4 |
| 2012 | 7 |
| 2013 | 6 |
| 2014 | 12 |
| 2015 | 4 |
| 2016 | 1 |
IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 90 years between 1918–2016. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Malu Rochab. 1947BRBrazilian actress
- Malu Pessinb. 1949BRBrazilian actor
- Malu de Martinob. 1960BRBrazilian writer (born 1960)
- Malu Dreyerb. 1961DEGerman politician
- Malu Maderb. 1966BRBrazilian actress
- Malu Gallib. 1971BRBrazilian actress
- Malu Jimenezb. 1971BRPhilosopher, teacher, feminist, activist against fatophobia
- Malu Rodriguesb. 1993BRBrazilian actress
- Malu Trevejob. 2002CUCuban-American dancer and singer-songwriter
- Malu HalasaUSUnited States writer
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 56 sources across 30 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name 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 · 472 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Malu?
- We estimate roughly 14 thousand people bear Malu (counting its spellings and scripts) across 8 countries in our records.
- In which country does Malu have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 13 thousand people bear Malu in Brazil, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled malu.
- Where is Malu most common?
- Malu is densest in Brazil, where the national register counts about 1 in 17 thousand people carrying it.
- Is Malu a male or female name?
- Malu is a female 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 Malu mean?
- Recorded meaning: A culturally significant tattoo on a Samoan woman's upper leg.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/maluThe 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, “Malu”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.