Otieno

surname · Swahili · Latin script

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

Otieno is a surname, most frequently recorded in Kenya, where it is the most common surname. It appears chiefly in Swahili and English, written in the Latin script.

rarermore common
  • KEKenya1 in 58◐
  • TZTanzania1 in 2.9K
  • USUnited States1 in 720K

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

≈725 ●

across 10 countries

Sources
168 ●

78K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 83K ◐

Finland

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Otieno is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
KE Kenya#1661,49472K rec.—5Otieno108
TZ Tanzania#1642,973476 rec.——Otieno26
GB United Kingdom—600297 rec.——Otieno48
US United States—4624.5K rec.1 in 720K910Otieno168
AU Australia—208250 rec.——Otieno30
DE Germany—131121 rec.——Otieno45
CA Canada—120120 rec.——Otieno24
ZA South Africa—8496 rec.——Otieno16
FI Finland—67△10 rec.1 in 83K67—8
SE Sweden—5790 rec.1 in 179K57Otieno11
CH Switzerland—51△20 rec.1 in 165K51Otieno17
AE United Arab Emirates—3730 rec.——Otieno19

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

Languages●

  • Swahili666K99%
  • English2.7K1%
  • Arabic7351%
  • Spanish3401%
  • German3371%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Swahili666,10499%
English2,7461%
Arabic7351%
Spanish3401%
German3371%

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◐

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

  • Spanish surname839 records spelled Otieno3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Kenya, United States, United Kingdom, Spain

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Otieño

  • Russian surname102 records spelled Otieno4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Kenya, United States

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Отіено

40 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.

Notable people with this name●

1940196019802000Eric Otieno, b. 1956Michael Otieno Odiwa, b. 1962Paul Otieno Imbaya, b. 1976Telley Savalas Otieno, b. 1977Janet Otieno, b. 1977Francis Otieno, b. 1979Kenny Otieno, b. 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 23 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Otieno
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020910#27,948
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010462#46,138
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000201#86,341
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—67#22,676
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—57#11,322
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—52#13,249
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202451#18,386
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—42#9,667
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—36#31,763
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202617—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—17#99,477
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202616—

Reference works 1

  • 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 · 27 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Otieno?
We estimate roughly 725 people bear Otieno (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Otieno have the most bearers?
Otieno is most frequently recorded in Kenya, where it is most often spelled otieno.
How common is Otieno compared with other names?
In Kenya, Otieno is the most common surname of 163,280 surnames recorded there.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/otieno

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, “Otieno” — the most common surname in Kenya. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Otieno parses inside a full name →