Osei
surname · Akan · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Osei is a surname, most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is the 3rd most common surname. It appears chiefly in Akan and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Maker of the great; noble.
- GHGhana1 in 43◐
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 53K
- ESSpain1 in 148K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈2.9K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 238 ●
- 1 in 58K ◐
across 10 countries
recorded for this name
37K records
Official registry-verified
Norway
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Осей 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●
Maker of the great; noble
Sources 1
- The book of African 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | #3 | 326,797 | 10K rec. | — | 308K | Osei | 127 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 4,379 | 2.4K rec. | — | — | Osei | 113 |
| US United States | — | 1,868 | 16K rec. | 1 in 178K | 2.8K | Osei | 238 |
| DE Germany | — | 969 | 1.1K rec. | — | 1 | Osei | 82 |
| NG Nigeria | — | 787 | 256 rec. | — | listed | Osei | 22 |
| IT Italy | — | 588 | 755 rec. | — | — | Osei | 39 |
| CA Canada | — | 492 | 535 rec. | — | — | Osei | 69 |
| AU Australia | — | 435 | 479 rec. | — | — | Osei | 54 |
| ES Spain | — | 339 | 364 rec. | 1 in 148K | 339 | Osei | 31 |
| EG Egypt | — | 255 | 357 rec. | — | — | Osei | 7 |
| MH Marshall Islands | #3 | 224 | 1.8K rec. | — | — | Osei | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 203 | 471 rec. | 1 in 85K | 203 | Osei | 35 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Akan309K81%
- English33K9%
- Swahili16K4%
- Ukrainian5.6K1%
- Spanish2K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Akan | 308,634 | 81% |
| English | 33,319 | 9% |
| Swahili | 16,415 | 4% |
| Ukrainian | 5,614 | 1% |
| Spanish | 1,970 | 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●
Osei is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Noble
as a nameA Handbook of African Names
In Russian, Osei Ivanovich'. Mid 15th Century.
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
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 |
|---|---|
| 1974 | 5 |
| 1975 | 6 |
| 1977 | 5 |
| 1978 | 5 |
| 1979 | 10 |
| 1980 | 9 |
| 1981 | 11 |
| 1982 | 5 |
| 1983 | 6 |
| 1986 | 5 |
| 1989 | 7 |
| 1991 | 7 |
| 1992 | 6 |
| 1994 | 7 |
| 1995 | 6 |
| 1996 | 5 |
| 1997 | 8 |
| 1998 | 6 |
| 1999 | 10 |
| 2001 | 6 |
| 2002 | 9 |
| 2003 | 7 |
| 2004 | 8 |
| 2006 | 8 |
| 2007 | 6 |
| 2010 | 7 |
| 2011 | 7 |
| 2012 | 5 |
| 2013 | 5 |
| 2015 | 7 |
| 2017 | 7 |
| 2018 | 5 |
| 2019 | 8 |
| 2023 | 9 |
| 2025 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 35 years between 1974–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Joseph Osei Owusub. 1962GHGhanaian lawyer and politician
- Yaw Osei Adutwumb. 1964GHGhanaian politician
- Abena Osei-Pokub. 1971GHGhanaian corporate executive
- Dave Oseib. 1983NLDutch footballer
- Sassy Sika Oseib. 1985GHpresenter and actor from Ghana
- Ransford Oseib. 1990GHGhanaian footballer
- Kevin Oseib. 1991FRGhanaian and French footballer
- Derick Oseib. 1998FRGhanaian and French association football player
- Akai Oseib. 1999GBBritish actor, dancer, rapper, and singer
- Kwaku Bonsu Oseib. 2000GHGhanian 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 39 sources across 22 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 · 95 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Osei?
- We estimate roughly 2.9 thousand people bear Osei (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
- In which country does Osei have the most bearers?
- Osei is most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is most often spelled osei.
- How common is Osei compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Osei is the 3rd most common surname of 34,696 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Osei mean?
- Recorded meaning: Maker of the great; noble
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/oseiThe 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, “Osei” — the 3rd most common surname in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.