Roman

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Роман in RU Russia, UA Ukraine, KZ Kazakhstan and 5 more and Román in EC Ecuador.

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●

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

Roman is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• a separate given name64K records spelled Roman11 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, India, Ecuador, Russia

  Also written Román, R-Oman, Röman, RomÃn, Romān

• Estonian given name35K records spelled Roman9 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Finland, Estonia, United States, Russia

  Languages: Estonian, Finnish

  Also written Röman, Romañ, Román, Rõmãn, Rõmän

• Norwegian Bokmål given name14K records spelled Roman10 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Norway, Denmark, United States, Russia

  Languages: Norwegian Bokmål, Danish, Norwegian

  Also written Román

• Lao given name7.8K records spelled Roman51 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Laos, Thailand, United States, Chile

  Languages: Lao, Thai

  Also written รอหมาน, Román, โรมัน, ร่อหมาน, หร้อหมาน

• Hindi given name4.6K records spelled Roman122 spellings in the group

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

  Languages: Hindi, English, Bangla

  Also written Raman, Ramon, Ramini, Rumon, Ramãn

• Lithuanian given name2.2K records spelled Roman7 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Lithuania, Latvia, United States, Russia

  Languages: Lithuanian, Latvian

  Also written Romanas, Román, Röman

95 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●

Roman 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.

• Jacob ben Isaac Roman, Arabic-Turkish-Hebrew dictionary author

  as a name·Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

• From Latin R6mdnus ‘Roman’. This was the baptismal name of St Boris.

  as a name·A concise dictionary of first names

• In English, Upright, as opposed to italic.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swedish, Roman är ett latinskt namn bildat till Romanus ’romare’, vanligt i Östeuropa. En känd namnbärare var Roman den store (ca 1152–1205), storfurste av Kiev. En fransk form är Romain.

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In Italian, forma dialetal setentrional, redução de Romano

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

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●

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 142 years between 1882–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Roman Jakobsonb. 1896USRussian linguist (1896–1982)
• Romain Garyb. 1914FRnot in their usual nameFrench writer and diplomat (1914–1980)
• Roman Polanskib. 1933FRFrench-Polish filmmaker (born 1933)
• Roman Abramovichb. 1966RURussian-Israeli oligarch and politician
• Roman Weidenfellerb. 1980DEGerman association football player (born 1980)
• Roman Pavlyuchenkob. 1981RURussian footballer
• Roman Shirokovb. 1981RURussian footballer (born 1981)
• Roman Adamovb. 1982RURussian football player
• Iscob. 1992ESnot in their usual nameSpanish association football player
• RomanusITnot in their usual namepope

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,616 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Roman?

We estimate roughly 649 thousand people bear Roman (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.

In which country does Roman have the most bearers?

Roman is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled роман.

Where is Roman most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Roman is densest in the Czechia — about 1 in 79 people — even though Russia holds more of our records for it.

How common is Roman compared with other names?

In Russia, Roman is the 37th most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.

Is Roman a male or female name?

Roman 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 Roman mean?

Recorded meaning: (i) Person from Rome or a pilgrim to Rome.