Samba

given name · French · Latin script

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

Samba is a given name, most frequently recorded in Senegal, where it is the 19th most common given name. It appears chiefly in French and Hindi, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N);.

rarermore common
  • SNSenegal1 in 206◐
  • FRFrance1 in 32K
  • USUnited States1 in 655K

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

≈4.4K ●

across 10 countries

Sources
218 ●

36K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 32K ◐

Spain

Meaning & origin●

a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N);

Sources 1

  • Sunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Samba is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
SN Senegal#193,2701.4K rec.—68Samba54
FR France—2,11525K rec.1 in 32K2.1KSamba218
ES Spain—1,567△658 rec.1 in 32K1.6KSamba44
ML Mali#26510501 rec.——Samba24
US United States—5082K rec.1 in 655K522Samba96
IN India—410443 rec.—206Samba25
BE Belgium—270471 rec.—42Samba18
IT Italy—208343 rec.—6Samba30
MR Mauritania#10198251 rec.——Samba14
CI Côte d’Ivoire—170194 rec.——Samba18
SE Sweden—101496 rec.1 in 101K101Samba8
DZ Algeria—56140 rec.——Samba7

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

Languages●

  • French32K27%
  • Hindi21K17%
  • English16K13%
  • Assamese13K11%
  • Telugu13K11%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
French32,20127%
Hindi20,86617%
English16,15713%
Assamese13,03111%
Telugu13,02911%

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◐

Samba is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi given name40K records spelled Samba30 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: Hindi, Assamese, English

    Also written Sambha, Sambaa, Saamba, সাম্বা, Sumba

  • English given name21K records spelled Samba6 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: English, German, Western Frisian

    Also written Sambå, Sämbã, Sāmba

  • Telugu given name13K records spelled Samba14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States

    Languages: Telugu, Hindi, Assamese

    Also written Sambi, Sambe, Sambo, సాంబ, Sāmbi

  • a separate given name12K records spelled Samba4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Senegal, Mali

    Also written Śāmbā, Šamba, Sāmba

64 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●

Samba 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 English, A Brazilian ballroom dance or dance style.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, samba (dance)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, dance

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • Gift.

    as a nameThe African book of names

  • In men, a broad open basket, lily, a present; a leading Sande member who, dressed in leaves, appears in the town and assembles the girls for initiation

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

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●

020406020002005201020152020

Show as table
Samba in SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023), Sweden, 1999–2020
Yearrecords
199916
200016
200116
200221
200320
200421
200521
200623
200726
200826
200928
201029
201132
201234
201339
201437
201538
201639
201739
201843
201943
202045

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

19401960198020002020Samba Gadjigo, b. 1954Adama Niane, b. 1966Samba Diawara, b. 1978Samba Schutte, b. 1983Samba Diakité, b. 1989Samba Sow, b. 1989Samba Camara, b. 1992Samba Diallo, b. 2003Samba Lélé Diba, b. 2003

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 66 sources across 33 countries.

Official registers attesting Samba
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaIndia Names Dataset — Andhra Pradesh Electoral Rolls (Internet Archive)—13K#439
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)20242.1K#630
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.6K#2,090
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.3K#1,041
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020522#44,341
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020508#19,703
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010371#55,386
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—348#9,437
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—318#11,515
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—318#11,486
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991283—
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—206#17,370

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 · 173 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Samba?
We estimate roughly 4.4 thousand people bear Samba (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Samba have the most bearers?
Samba is most frequently recorded in Senegal, where it is most often spelled samba.
How common is Samba compared with other names?
In Senegal, Samba is the 19th most common given name of 3,508 given names recorded there.
Is Samba a male or female name?
Samba 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 Samba mean?
Recorded meaning: a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N);
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/samba

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, “Samba” — the 19th most common given name in Senegal. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Samba parses inside a full name →