Ndlovu
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ndlovu is a surname, most frequently recorded in Zimbabwe, where it is the 5th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Zulu, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Elephant.
- ZWZimbabwe1 in 10◐
- ZASouth Africa1 in 208
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 67K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈299 ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 131 ●
- 1 in 473K ◐
across 9 countries
recorded for this name
118K records
Official registry-verified
Poland
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Ндлову in RU Russia.
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●
Elephant.
Sources 1
- The African book of names
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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZW Zimbabwe | #5 | 745,654 | 283 rec. | — | 249K | Ndlovu | 62 |
| ZA South Africa | #2 | 145,183 | 114K rec. | — | 5.1K | Ndlovu | 123 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 3,482 | 1.5K rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 96 |
| AU Australia | — | 564 | 502 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 43 |
| CA Canada | — | 185 | 175 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 34 |
| US United States | — | 153 | 1.1K rec. | 1 in 2.2M | 265 | Ndlovu | 131 |
| PL Poland | — | 81△ | 12 rec. | 1 in 473K | 81 | Ndlovu | 11 |
| DE Germany | — | 81 | 72 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 29 |
| IE Ireland | — | 63 | 42 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 23 |
| FR France | — | 49 | 42 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 28 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | 45 | 29 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 24 |
| BW Botswana | #17 | 36 | 219 rec. | — | — | Ndlovu | 22 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English828K91%
- Zulu23K3%
- English (South Africa)15K2%
- Swahili13K1%
- Afrikaans7K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 828,252 | 91% |
| Zulu | 23,382 | 3% |
| English (South Africa) | 14,847 | 2% |
| Swahili | 12,923 | 1% |
| Afrikaans | 7,033 | 1% |
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●
Ndlovu 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 Zulu, Means "elephant"; clan totem symbolizing strength and wisdom.
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
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●
- Robert Christopher Ndlovub. 1955ZWZimbabwean Roman-Catholic priest Archbishop of Harare
- Adam Ndlovub. 1970ZWZimbabwean footballer (1970-2012)
- Sizwe Ndlovub. 1980ZASouth African rower
- Sandile Ndlovub. 1980ZAAssociation footballer
- Themba Ndlovub. 1984ZWZimbabwean association football player (born 1984)
- Samkelo Ndlovub. 1989ZASouth African actress
- Dino Ndlovub. 1990ZASouth African footballer
- Stephanie Ndlovub. 1990ZASouth African actor and linguist
- Hungani Ndlovub. 1994ZASouth African actor
- Siphesihle Ndlovub. 1996ZASouth African footballer
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 16 countries.
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 · 28 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ndlovu?
- We estimate roughly 299 people bear Ndlovu (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ndlovu have the most bearers?
- Ndlovu is most frequently recorded in Zimbabwe, where it is most often spelled ndlovu.
- How common is Ndlovu compared with other names?
- In Zimbabwe, Ndlovu is the 5th most common surname of 8,027 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Ndlovu mean?
- Recorded meaning: Elephant.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ndlovuThe 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, “Ndlovu” — the 5th most common surname in Zimbabwe. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.