Ram

given name · Assamese · Latin script

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

Ram is a given name, most frequently recorded in India, where it is the most common given name. It appears chiefly in Assamese and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: (i) From a nickname for a forceful person; (ii) person who lives in thick woodland; (iii) person near a border; (iv) invented Jewish name from Hebrew ram ‘lofty’; (v) Hindu name from Sanskrit rdma ‘pl.

rarermore common
  • INIndia1 in 64◐
  • THThailand1 in 3.1K
  • SGSingapore1 in 3.8K

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

≈16K ●

across 9 countries

#27 ●

of 16M given names

6 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
317 ●

11M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.5K ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

RamLatin · Assamese●12M records
রামBengali · Bangla●2.9K records
ริมThai · Thai●2.5K records
РумCyrillic · Russian●784 records
రామTelugu · Telugu●3 records
ਰਾਮGurmukhi · Punjabi●0 records

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Rom in PH Philippines, CH Switzerland, Raam in PK Pakistan, ริม in TH Thailand and Rama in SY Syria.

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●

Derivation of Ram: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Ram
  1. Hebrewram●
  2. Sanskritrdma●

(i) From a nickname for a forceful person; (ii) person who lives in thick woodland; (iii) person near a border; (iv) invented Jewish name from Hebrew ram ‘lofty’; (v) Hindu name from Sanskrit rdma ‘pleasing’.

Sources 1

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

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Ram is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#148,024,06610M rec.—3.4MRam268
MY Malaysia#29715,03010K rec.——Ram61
PK Pakistan—13,487341 rec.—listedRaam39
GB United Kingdom—10,5229.4K rec.—12Ram117
PH Philippines—9,7667.9K rec.——Rom65
TH Thailand—8,3034.3K rec.—#523,204ริม78
AU Australia—5,5109.5K rec.—2Ram138
US United States—5,434142K rec.1 in 61K5.4KRam317
SY Syria—3,8354.7K rec.——Rama15
FI Finland—3,743△61 rec.1 in 1.5K4.1KRam8
CA Canada—3,5235.9K rec.—7Ram100
SG Singapore#2292,7995.3K rec.——Ram84

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

Languages●

  • Assamese12M29%
  • English12M28%
  • Hindi9.4M23%
  • 7.5M18%
  • Bangla170K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Assamese12,096,71529%
English11,614,09428%
Hindi9,358,13423%
7,505,97318%
Bangla169,7971%

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◐

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

  • a separate given name14M records spelled Ram8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Pakistan, United Kingdom

    Also written Ram', 'Ram, Râm, Rām, Rāṃ

  • Arabic given name120K records spelled Ram19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar

    Languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic

    Also written רם, רום, ראם, Rom, Rem

  • French given name9.9K records spelled Ram26 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, India, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Ràm, Râm, Räm, Rãm, Råm

  • Japanese given name6.7K records spelled Ram6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Japan, United States, Malaysia

    Also written Ramu, Ràm, Râmú, Rám, Rắm

  • Polish given name3.0K records spelled Ram6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, India, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Řâm, Řąm, Ŕàm, Ŕãm, Rām

  • Korean surname2.1K records spelled Ram13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Korea, India, Hong Kong

    Also written Lam, 람, Lâm, Làm, Lắm

  • Russian given name1.9K records spelled Ram33 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, India, United States

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish

    Also written Рэм, Рем, Рам, Rem, Rehm

57 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●

Ram 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.

  • The Hebrew name Ram (רָם) means "high," "lofty," or "exalted."

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • The Hebrew name Ram (רָם) means "high" or "exalted".

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • A Hebrew name meaning 'high' or 'exalted'.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • He represents the faithful preservation of the messianic seed within the Tribe of Judah during the years in Egypt.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • In German, from ON ramr 'strong' or ahd. ram(mo) 'ram'; partly merged with RABE

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

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●

0204060801920194019601980200067 · 1952

Show as table
Ram in naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls), India, 1915–2014
Yearrecords
19151
19191
19201
19212
19221
19243
19256
19264
19272
19283
19293
193010
193111
193214
193315
193412
193519
193620
193721
193813
193917
194028
194131
194245
194334
194428
194539
194637
194754
194849
194946
195039
195136
195267
195337
195450
195552
195640
195757
195842
195946
196058
196141
196264
196356
196442
196553
196648
196756
196843
196946
197041
197145
197253
197337
197432
197523
197630
197734
197842
197931
198048
198136
198245
198345
198414
198523
198624
198718
198819
198914
19906
19919
199215
199320
199415
199511
199611
19979
19986
20137
20141

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 82 years between 1915–2014. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1700180019002000Ram Mohan Roy, b. 1772Ram Manohar Lohia, b. 1910Ram Narayan, b. 1927Ram Chandra Poudel, b. 1944Ram Nath Kovind, b. 1945Ram Baran Yadav, b. 1948Ram Gopal Varma, b. 1962Ram Bergman, b. 1970Ram Kapoor, b. 1973Ram Pothineni, b. 1988

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 79 sources across 41 countries.

Official registers attesting Ram
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—3.4M#6
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20205.4K#3,534
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.9K#6,632
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.9K#8,547
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.8K#10,629
GY GuyanaGuyana — Official List of Electors July 202520251.1K#72
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020416#3,534
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—399#9,568
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—399#9,550
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—324#3,720
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—250#4,060
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)2026245#1,129

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
  • 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 · 494 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Ram?
We estimate roughly 16 thousand people bear Ram (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Ram have the most bearers?
Ram is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled ram.
How common is Ram compared with other names?
In India, Ram is the most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
Is Ram a male or female name?
Ram 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 Ram mean?
Recorded meaning: (i) From a nickname for a forceful person; (ii) person who lives in thick woodland; (iii) person near a border; (iv) invented Jewish name from Hebrew ram ‘lofty’; (v) Hindu name from Sanskrit rdma ‘pl…
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ram

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, “Ram” — the most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Ram parses inside a full name →