Oscar

given name · Spanish · Latin script

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

Oscar is a given name, most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is the 20th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Spanish and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: From the male personal name Oscar, of Gaelic origin, literally ‘deer-friend’.

rarermore common
  • ARArgentina1 in 169◐
  • SVEl Salvador1 in 184
  • SESweden1 in 222

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

≈656K ●

across 14 countries

#192 ●

of 16M given names

10 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
468 ●

6.9M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 145 ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

OscarLatin · Spanish●8.3M records
АскарCyrillic · Russian●115K records
אוסקרHebrew · Hebrew●9K records
ᲐსკარGeorgian · Georgian●223 records
আসকারBengali · Bangla●32 records
ออสก้าThai · Thai●24 records
ΌσκαρGreek · Greek●1 records
അസ്കർMalayalam · Malayalam●0 records
அஸ்கரTamil · Tamil●0 records
오스카르Hangul · Korean●0 records

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Аскар in KZ Kazakhstan, RU Russia, FI Finland and 1 more, Oskar in PL Poland, CZ Czechia, Óscar in FR France and Askar in IN India.

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 the male personal name Oscar, of Gaelic origin, literally ‘deer-friend’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Oscar is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AR Argentina#204,034,0412.6M rec.—664Oscar157
MX Mexico#511,028,306757K rec.—2.3KOscar274
PE Peru#39644,368368K rec.—101KOscar134
VE Venezuela#44549,687166K rec.——Oscar120
CO Colombia#37263,790101K rec.—282Oscar208
CL Chile#76240,57821K rec.—119Oscar154
US United States#275212,5031.6M rec.1 in 1.6K213KOscar468
SV El Salvador#13147,543114K rec.—308Oscar104
ES Spain#39123,663261K rec.1 in 404124KOscar244
PL Poland#14280,957△11K rec.1 in 47381KOskar155
AU Australia#29671,40630K rec.—613Oscar205
RU Russia#41766,21731K rec.—#235Аскар134

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

Languages●

  • Spanish8.3M70%
  • English1.4M12%
  • Portuguese676K6%
  • French147K1%
  • 124K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Spanish8,298,10370%
English1,442,71712%
Portuguese676,4366%
French146,8051%
123,8921%

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◐

Oscar is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate given name134K records spelled Oscar3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Ecuador, India, Spain

    Also written Óscar, Òscar

  • a separate given name2.7K records spelled Oscar6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Norway, Peru, Spain

    Also written Óscar, Óscår, Osçàr, Oscàr, Öscar

90 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●

Oscar 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 English, Legendary hero, grandson of Finn MacCool; possibly from Irish oscar 'champion warrior' or 'jewel'.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • In English, A male given name from Irish or Old English.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Italian, Dall’inglese Oscar, dal gaelico antico; introdotto in Italia dal Cesariotti e reso popolare da Verdi. Equiparato ad Anscario.

    as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani

  • In French, D’origine germanique; peut signifier « lance des dieux » ou « cerf ami ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, Origine germanique, « lance d’Ans »; lié au dieu teutonique Ans.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

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●

01K2K3K4K1900195020003.6K · 2006

Show as table
Oscar in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
1880544
1881530
1882625
1883607
1884615
1885623
1886645
1887574
1888647
1889572
1890628
1891551
1892634
1893574
1894601
1895549
1896539
1897543
1898546
1899447
1900563
1901422
1902397
1903427
1904442
1905436
1906412
1907483
1908476
1909459
1910505
1911636
19121,157
19131,249
19141,553
19151,788
19161,916
19171,961
19182,113
19191,991
19202,006
19211,978
19222,007
19231,880
19241,819
19251,754
19261,715
19271,635
19281,464
19291,482
19301,467
19311,334
19321,254
19331,111
19341,096
19351,091
19361,008
1937988
19381,024
19391,000
1940936
19411,022
1942958
19431,074
1944910
1945939
19461,017
19471,110
19481,098
19491,124
19501,103
19511,067
19521,087
19531,196
19541,268
19551,155
19561,132
19571,200
19581,070
19591,087
19601,066
19611,042
19621,007
19631,021
1964999
1965989
1966943
1967934
1968903
19691,004
19701,042
19711,066
19721,111
19731,068
19741,198
19751,235
19761,231
19771,273
19781,311
19791,312
19801,396
19811,464
19821,486
19831,370
19841,421
19851,592
19861,572
19871,661
19881,733
19891,966
19902,328
19912,445
19922,586
19932,847
19942,847
19952,730
19963,000
19972,970
19983,006
19993,126
20003,178
20013,195
20023,233
20033,301
20043,348
20053,461
20063,601
20073,548
20083,563
20093,117
20102,665
20112,378
20122,198
20132,242
20142,321
20152,299
20162,261
20172,048
20181,956
20191,892
20201,766
20211,697
20221,892
20231,702
20241,669
20251,620

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Oscar Wilde, b. 1854Óscar Carmona, b. 1869Gustaf VI Adolf, b. 1882Óscar Arnulfo Romero, b. 1917Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, b. 1918Óscar Arias, b. 1941Nicanor Duarte, b. 1956Rey Mysterio Jr, b. 1974Oscar Pistorius, b. 1986Oscar, b. 1991
  • Oscar Wildeb. 1854IEIrish poet, playwright, and aesthete (1854-1900)
  • Óscar Carmonab. 1869PT11th Portuguese president (1926-1951)
  • Gustaf VI Adolfb. 1882SEnot in their usual nameKing of Sweden (1950–1973); anthropologist, art historian, collector and archaeologist
  • Óscar Arnulfo Romerob. 1917SVfourth archbishop of San Salvador (1917–1980)
  • Oscar Luigi Scalfarob. 1918IT9th President of Italy (1918–2012)
  • Óscar Ariasb. 1941CRPresident of Costa Rica (1986–1990, 2006–2010)
  • Nicanor Duarteb. 1956PYnot in their usual name46.° President of Paraguay
  • Rey Mysterio Jrb. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler
  • Oscar Pistoriusb. 1986ZASouth African sprinter and convicted murderer (born 1986)
  • Oscarb. 1991BRBrazilian association football player (born 1991)

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 140 sources across 72 countries.

Official registers attesting Oscar
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020213K#263
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—124K#67
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—123K#37
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names202451K#38
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—42K#95
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—38K#939
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202232K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—31K#786
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)202427K#62
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202022K—
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—20K#9
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—15K#304

Reference works 6

  • 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
  • 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 · 1,757 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Oscar?
We estimate roughly 656 thousand people bear Oscar (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
In which country does Oscar have the most bearers?
Oscar is most frequently recorded in Argentina, where it is most often spelled oscar.
Where is Oscar most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Oscar is densest in Finland — about 1 in 145 people — even though Argentina holds more of our records for it.
How common is Oscar compared with other names?
In Argentina, Oscar is the 20th most common given name of 517,176 given names recorded there.
Is Oscar a male or female name?
Oscar 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 Oscar mean?
Recorded meaning: From the male personal name Oscar, of Gaelic origin, literally ‘deer-friend’.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/oscar

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, “Oscar” — the 20th most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Oscar parses inside a full name →