Mustafa

given name · Turkish · Latin script

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

Mustafa is a given name, with more bearers in Türkiye than in any other country, where it is the 3rd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Turkish and Kurdish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Turkish given name/surname from Arabic Mustafā 'the chosen one'.

rarermore common
  • TRTürkiye1 in 78◐
  • CYCyprus1 in 113
  • DZAlgeria1 in 136

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

≈1.1M ●

across 10 countries

#175 ●

of 16M given names

5 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
303 ●

11M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 78 ◐

Türkiye

Spellings & scripts●

MustafaLatin · Turkish●10M records
МустафаCyrillic · Russian●41K records
มุสตอฟาThai · Thai●532 records
ΜουσταφάGreek · Greek●11 records
무스타파Hangul · Korean●0 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Мустафа in RU Russia, UA Ukraine, KG Kyrgyzstan and 1 more, Мұстафа in KZ Kazakhstan, Moustafa in FR France and Mustafe in NO Norway.

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●

Turkish given name/surname from Arabic Mustafā 'the chosen one'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Mustafa is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
TR Türkiye#31,057,63410M rec.1 in 781.1MMustafa194
SY Syria#7233,865302K rec.——Mustafa48
DZ Algeria#25178,3532.3K rec.—listedMustafa37
DE Germany#24696,155100K rec.—1Mustafa196
EG Egypt#8350,12040K rec.—listedMustafa160
BG Bulgaria#5732,34125K rec.——Mustafa73
RU Russia#67432,32327K rec.—#279Мустафа118
IN India—31,86812K rec.—1.6KMustafa121
IQ Iraq#51131,41634K rec.——Mustafa98
CY Cyprus#1020,10125K rec.——Mustafa41
GB United Kingdom#78919,51816K rec.—listedMustafa129
UA Ukraine#33615,11121K rec.——Мустафа33

Roughly 1.1M people in Türkiye bear this name (about 1 in 78). 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●

  • Turkish10M80%
  • Kurdish1.1M9%
  • English296K2%
  • Arabic288K2%
  • Hindi166K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Turkish10,456,19780%
Kurdish1,115,8629%
English295,6462%
Arabic287,9912%
Hindi165,6771%

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◐

Mustafa is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Bangla given name387K records spelled Mustafa114 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Bangladesh, India, Türkiye, Pakistan

    Languages: Bangla, Hindi, English

    Also written Mostafa, Mostofa, Mustapha, মোস্তাফা, মোস্তফা

  • Indonesian given name150K records spelled Mustafa19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Türkiye, Malaysia, Indonesia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written M'Ustafa, Mustafa', Mustafà, Mústáfá, Mùśtafa

  • a separate given name129K records spelled Mustafa22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Türkiye, Pakistan

    Also written Muṣṭafá, Muṣṭafā, Muṣt̤afá, Mustafá, Mustafâ

  • Spanish given name82K records spelled Mustafa12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Spain, Brazil, United States

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Mustafá, M'Ustafa, Muṣṭafá, Mustafà, Muṣṭafā

  • French given name79K records spelled Mustafa9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Türkiye, Belgium, Syria

    Languages: French, Italian

    Also written M'Ustafa, Mustafà, Mustafá, Mùstàfà, Muṣṭafá

  • Danish given name26K records spelled Mustafa5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Norway, Türkiye, Syria

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian

    Also written Müstafa

  • Chinese given name24K records spelled Mustafa2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Syria, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written M'Ustafa

62 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●

Mustafa 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 Arabic, the chosen one; epithet of the Prophet Muhammad

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • $ ‘Pure’ or ‘chosen’. Al-Mustafa ‘the Chosen One’ is an epithet of Muhammad. For Arabic-speaking Christians it is an epithet of St Paul. Mustafa Kamal (1881-1938) was the founder of 4 295 modern Turkey (president from 1922), known in Turkish as Ataiirk ‘father of the Turks’.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • from the Arabic personal name (see 1 above), or from a nickname from Calabrian mustafd ‘strong man with a walms moustache’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • from the Arabic personal name (see 1 above).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In Turkish, 1. Seçilmiş, seçkin. 2. Hz. Muhammed'in adlarından.

    as a wordTDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)

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●

020406019001950200060 · 1963

Show as table
Mustafa in ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search), Kosovo, 1867–2025
Yearrecords
18671
18711
18802
18821
18852
18862
18882
18904
18931
18944
18953
18962
18971
18985
18992
19006
19012
19024
19034
19045
19058
19064
19071
19089
19099
19109
19114
19129
19136
19145
19158
19164
191710
19188
19197
192013
19217
192211
192314
192415
19255
192614
192720
192827
192918
193019
193123
193226
193319
193426
193534
193643
193731
193834
193928
194040
194120
194233
194321
194434
194541
194623
194732
194830
194943
195032
195145
195240
195322
195433
195542
195631
195740
195838
195948
196045
196138
196252
196360
196431
196541
196634
196746
196832
196932
197023
197130
197222
197320
197430
197517
197624
197719
197812
197913
198014
198112
198210
198312
198412
19856
198613
19876
19882
19896
19906
19918
19924
19937
19946
19956
19967
19978
19986
19996
20003
20017
20023
20032
20047
20053
20065
20074
20084
20097
20109
20117
20125
20133
20148
20156
20168
20172
20184
20196
20201
20215
20221
20233
20242
20251

XK ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) — 141 years between 1867–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

150016001700180019002000Mustafa I, b. 1591Mustafa II, b. 1664Mustafa III, b. 1717Mustafa IV, b. 1779Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, b. 1881İsmet İnönü, b. 1884Bülent Ecevit, b. 1925Abu Hamza al-Masri, b. 1958Moustafa Madbouli, b. 1966Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, b. 1967
  • Mustafa Ib. 1591TR15th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1617–1618, 1622–1623)
  • Mustafa IIb. 1664TR22th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1695–1703)
  • Mustafa IIIb. 1717TR26th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1757–1774)
  • Mustafa IVb. 1779TR29th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1807–1808)
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürkb. 1881TRfounding father of the Republic of Turkey (c. 1881–1938)
  • İsmet İnönüb. 1884TRnot in their usual name2nd President of the Republic of Turkey (1884–1973)
  • Bülent Ecevitb. 1925TRnot in their usual name16th Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey (1925–2006)
  • Abu Hamza al-Masrib. 1958EGnot in their usual nameEgyptian-born British Islamist terrorist
  • Moustafa Madboulib. 1966EGnot in their usual nameprime minister of Egypt since 2018
  • Mustafa Al-Kadhimib. 1967IQIraqi 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 115 sources across 57 countries.

Official registers attesting Mustafa
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
TR TürkiyeTÜİK NIP — most used given names20251.1M#2
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202013K#2,103
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020207.7K#4,476
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—7.4K#482
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020105.9K#5,875
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—4.9K#649
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20204.8K—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20244.6K#721
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020004K#7,724
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—2.8K#1,112
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20242.6K#337
TR TürkiyeTÜİK NIP — newborn names20252.4K#21

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • 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)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,104 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Mustafa?
We estimate roughly 1.1 million people bear Mustafa (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Mustafa have the most bearers?
We estimate about 1.1 million people bear Mustafa in Türkiye, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled mustafa.
Where is Mustafa most common?
Mustafa is densest in Türkiye, where the national register counts about 1 in 78 people carrying it.
How common is Mustafa compared with other names?
In Türkiye, Mustafa is the 3rd most common given name of 294,597 given names recorded there.
Is Mustafa a male or female name?
Mustafa 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 Mustafa mean?
Recorded meaning: Turkish given name/surname from Arabic Mustafā 'the chosen one'
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mustafa

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, “Mustafa” — the 3rd most common given name in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Mustafa parses inside a full name →