Modestus
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Modestus is a given name, most frequently recorded in Canada. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Latin modestus 'modest'; saint name Modest.
- CACanada1 in 3.3K◐
- BEBelgium1 in 36K
- USUnited States1 in 185K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈2.9K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 217 ●
- 1 in 36K ◐
across 11 countries
recorded for this name
335K records
Official registry-verified
Belgium
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Modesto in US United States, CA Canada, ES Spain and 6 more and Modest in BE Belgium, TZ Tanzania, DE Germany and 2 more.
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●
from Latin modestus 'modest'; saint name Modest
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 12 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CA Canada | 67,431 | 1.5K rec. | — | — | Modesto | 31 |
| US United States | 1,800 | 67K rec. | 1 in 185K | 5.7K | Modesto | 217 |
| GB United Kingdom | 1,129 | 2.4K rec. | — | listed | Modesto | 22 |
| NG Nigeria | 734 | 1.3K rec. | — | — | Modestus | 33 |
| TZ Tanzania | 416 | 349 rec. | — | — | Modest | 19 |
| ES Spain | 387 | 8.6K rec. | 1 in 129K | 7.3K | Modesto | 110 |
| DE Germany | 359 | 643 rec. | — | 1 | Modest | 42 |
| BE Belgium | 329△ | 151 rec. | 1 in 36K | 450 | Modest | 13 |
| AR Argentina | 270 | 47K rec. | 1 in 168K | 270 | — | 48 |
| MX Mexico | 264 | 59K rec. | — | 161 | Modesto | 113 |
| RU Russia | 135 | 180 rec. | — | — | Modesto | 14 |
| MA Morocco | 39 | 122 rec. | — | — | Modest | 9 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1K38%
- Swahili81530%
- Indonesian1927%
- Dutch863%
- 863%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,036 | 38% |
| Swahili | 815 | 30% |
| Indonesian | 192 | 7% |
| Dutch | 86 | 3% |
| 86 | 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●
Modestus is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latin, moderate, calm, restrained, mild
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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.
Notable people with this name●
- Modestusb. 720ATmissionary, evangelizer of the Alpine Slavs
- Modestus Dominkovitsb. 1701HUHungarian priest, monk
- Modestus Cornelius van Haelstb. 1779politician
- Paulus Modestus Schückingb. 1787DEGerman philosopher and writer (1787-1867)
- Modestus van Straatenb. 1911NLDutch philosopher (1911-1977)
- Hennie Kenkhuisb. 1954NLnot in their usual nameDutch politician (1954-2021)
- Modestus Dickson Kilufib. 1959TZTanzanian Member of Parliament
- Modestus Haasb. 1963LILiechtensteiner association football player
- Modestus Fernandob. 1963LKSri Lankan army officer
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 16 sources across 12 countries.
Reference works 2
- 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 · 16 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Modestus?
- We estimate roughly 2.9 thousand people bear Modestus (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
- In which country does Modestus have the most bearers?
- Modestus is most frequently recorded in Canada, where it is most often spelled modesto.
- Is Modestus a male or female name?
- Modestus 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 Modestus mean?
- Recorded meaning: from Latin modestus 'modest'; saint name Modest
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/modestusThe 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, “Modestus”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.