Rao
surname · Hindi · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rao is a surname, most frequently recorded in India, where it is the 43rd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Hindi and , written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Hindu name from Sanskrit raja 'king'.
- INIndia1 in 420◐
- SGSingapore1 in 2.1K
- MYMalaysia1 in 3.2K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈74K ●
- #518 ●
- 8 ●
- Sources
- 369 ●
- 1 in 2.2K ◐
across 7 countries
of 16M given names
recorded for this name
5.0M records
Official registry-verified
Guyana
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Ravi in IN India, BR Brazil, GB United Kingdom and 11 more, Rabi in NG Nigeria, PH Philippines, MX Mexico and 1 more, ราวี in TH Thailand and Robi in BD Bangladesh.
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●
Hindu name from Sanskrit raja 'king'
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | #43 | 6,621,766 | 4.5M rec. | — | 145K | Ravi | 318 |
| BR Brazil | — | 63,267△ | 335 rec. | 1 in 3.3K | 63K | Ravi | 49 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 24,223 | 20K rec. | — | listed | Ravi | 148 |
| MY Malaysia | #403 | 19,095 | 17K rec. | — | 589 | Ravi | 76 |
| AU Australia | — | 15,952 | 19K rec. | — | 2 | Rao | 154 |
| US United States | — | 9,433 | 304K rec. | 1 in 35K | 15K | Rao | 369 |
| CA Canada | — | 9,082 | 10K rec. | — | 9 | Ravi | 124 |
| PK Pakistan | — | 6,268 | 4.8K rec. | — | 2 | Rao | 78 |
| AR Argentina | — | 5,824 | 4.4K rec. | — | 686 | Rao | 55 |
| ID Indonesia | — | 5,106 | 3.6K rec. | — | listed | Ravi | 95 |
| SG Singapore | #233 | 4,923 | 6.6K rec. | — | — | Ravi | 93 |
| TH Thailand | — | 4,507 | 3.3K rec. | — | #541,450 | ราวี | 74 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Hindi1.5M45%
- 1.3M40%
- Telugu184K5%
- English154K5%
- Urdu36K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Hindi | 1,529,843 | 45% |
| 1,347,297 | 40% | |
| Telugu | 184,284 | 5% |
| English | 154,414 | 5% |
| Urdu | 35,884 | 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●
Rao 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 Italian, da Corrado
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Italian, forma popular e coloquial, redução meridional de Rodolfo
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In English, P.V. Narasimha, Indian prime
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Santha Rama, Indian writer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, minister
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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 |
|---|---|
| 1901 | 1 |
| 1911 | 1 |
| 1921 | 7 |
| 1931 | 8 |
| 1941 | 9 |
| 1951 | 41 |
| 1961 | 42 |
| 1971 | 37 |
| 1981 | 29 |
| 1991 | 25 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 10 years between 1901–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Raja Raob. 1908INIndian-born English writer (1908–2006)
- Calyampudi Radhakrishna Raob. 1920INIndian-American mathematician (1920–2023)
- Udupi Ramachandra Raob. 1932INIndian space scientist (1932–2017)
- M. Ranga Raob. 1932INIndian composer
- Radhika Raob. 1972INIndian film director
- Dileep Raob. 1973USAmerican actor
- Kiran Raob. 1973INIndian film director, screenwriter and film producer
- Amrita Raob. 1981INIndian actress and model
- Aditi Rao Hydarib. 1986INIndian actress (born 1978)
- Gitanjali Raob. 2005USAmerican inventor
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 50 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 184K | #3 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 145K | #147 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 15K | #2,363 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 12K | #3,075 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.4K | #3,872 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 686 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 473 | #19,676 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 259 | #5,015 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 212 | #529 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 205 | #36,074 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 204 | #16,331 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 204 | #16,269 |
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 surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 98 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Rao?
- We estimate roughly 74 thousand people bear Rao (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.
- In which country does Rao have the most bearers?
- Rao is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled ravi.
- How common is Rao compared with other names?
- In India, Rao is the 43rd most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
- What does the name Rao mean?
- Recorded meaning: Hindu name from Sanskrit raja 'king'
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/raoThe 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, “Rao” — the 43rd most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.