Santos

surname · Portuguese · Latin script

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

Santos is a surname, most frequently recorded in Mexico, where it is the 59th most common surname. It appears chiefly in Portuguese and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Religious name meaning ‘Saints’, a name chosen to invoke the protection of all the saints for a son.

rarermore common
  • PTPortugal1 in 33◐
  • GWGuinea-Bissau1 in 69
  • DODominican Republic1 in 90

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

≈284K ●

across 10 countries

#17 ●

of 21M surnames

4 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
467 ●

11M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 586 ◐

Spain

Spellings & scripts●

SantosLatin · Portuguese●48M records
СантосCyrillic · Russian●316 records
ΣάντοςGreek · Greek●1 records
산토스Hangul · Korean●0 records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Santosh in IN India, PL Poland.

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●

Religious name meaning ‘Saints’, a name chosen to invoke the protection of all the saints for a son.

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Santos is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MX Mexico#59853,408960K rec.—5.1KSantos225
PH Philippines#5821,917635K rec.——Santos183
PE Peru#117299,191794K rec.—128KSantos99
PT Portugal#2254,92479K rec.——Santos274
SV El Salvador#52169,437209K rec.——Santos77
US United States#332137,232750K rec.1 in 2.4K144KSantos467
UY Uruguay#4108,868109K rec.——Santos105
ES Spain#4685,287177K rec.1 in 58685KSantos216
HN Honduras#1974,245217K rec.——Santos69
DO Dominican Republic#165,77953K rec.——Santos124
GB United Kingdom#77727,18725K rec.——Santos198
EC Ecuador—26,532△1.7K rec.1 in 63727KSantos62

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

Languages●

  • Portuguese48M90%
  • Spanish2.9M5%
  • English968K2%
  • French336K1%
  • 135K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Portuguese47,734,09590%
Spanish2,859,3185%
English968,3322%
French335,6521%
135,2511%

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◐

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

  • English surname1.7M records spelled Santos70 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Switzerland

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Santoes, Santós, Santo-S, Säntös, Sántos

  • French surname383K records spelled Santos5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Philippines, United States, Belgium

    Also written Sàntos, Santõs, Säntös

  • a separate surname218K records spelled Santos6 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Santo-S, Såntos, Sántos, Santōṣ

  • Indonesian surname65K records spelled Santos10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, Indonesia, United States, Peru

    Also written Sàntos, Santo'S, Säntos, ̶S̶a͚̜̰͐n̥̝͉̈ͤͪͅt̶o͔s̶, Śănťos

101 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●

Santos 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 Portuguese, masculine plural of santo

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

  • In Spanish, Plural de Santo; nombre dado a nacidos el 1 de noviembre.

    as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios

  • In English, From Spanish/Portuguese personal name dos Santos, short for Todos los Santos ‘all the saints’; or person from places named Santos.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • Catholic inspiration

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

  • In English, city, Brazil

    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●

0100200300400190019502000

Show as table
Santos in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
18805
18859
18865
18887
18925
18945
18966
18977
18988
189911
190011
190111
190210
190310
190417
190516
190619
190718
190819
190918
191023
191117
191222
191325
191435
191545
191647
191762
191864
191975
192088
192198
192293
1923106
1924111
1925125
192696
1927126
1928112
192992
193097
193186
193299
193388
193481
193577
193660
193781
193889
193985
194080
194183
1942103
194388
1944128
1945122
1946117
1947154
1948123
1949139
1950124
1951134
1952100
1953123
1954160
1955122
1956136
1957149
1958144
1959159
1960142
1961152
1962165
1963149
1964158
1965140
1966143
1967159
1968156
1969162
1970174
1971188
1972159
1973173
1974172
1975190
1976172
1977178
1978172
1979172
1980221
1981226
1982180
1983199
1984162
1985176
1986185
1987178
1988157
1989172
1990186
1991215
1992189
1993223
1994209
1995233
1996221
1997217
1998227
1999238
2000227
2001246
2002245
2003277
2004236
2005259
2006302
2007273
2008294
2009254
2010240
2011230
2012212
2013242
2014237
2015236
2016215
2017208
2018205
2019220
2020244
2021274
2022277
2023314
2024297
2025337

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 136 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Alberto Santos-Dumont, b. 1873Sérgio Mendes, b. 1941Juan Manuel Santos, b. 1951Fernando Santos, b. 1954José Mourinho, b. 1963Emilio Butragueño, b. 1963Dante, b. 1983João Moutinho, b. 1986Ramires, b. 1987Neymar, b. 1992
  • Alberto Santos-Dumontb. 1873BRBrazilian aviation pioneer (1873-1932)
  • Sérgio Mendesb. 1941BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian musician (1941–2024)
  • Juan Manuel Santosb. 1951COpresident of Colombia from 2010 to 2018
  • Fernando Santosb. 1954PTPortuguese football manager
  • José Mourinhob. 1963PTnot in their usual namePortuguese association football manager and former player
  • Emilio Butragueñob. 1963ESnot in their usual nameSpanish footballer
  • Danteb. 1983BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian association football player
  • João Moutinhob. 1986PTnot in their usual namePortuguese association football player (born 1986)
  • Ramiresb. 1987BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian association football player (born 1987)
  • Neymarb. 1992BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian footballer (born 1992)

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 93 sources across 46 countries.

Official registers attesting Santos
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020144K#190
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010137K#206
PE PeruRENIEC — DNI population names2019128K#13
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200099K#279
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—85K#45
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—85K#45
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202034K#1,046
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names202427K#159
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—25K—
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names202414K#158
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—10K#250
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—9.6K#560

Reference works 7

  • 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)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,257 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Santos?
We estimate roughly 284 thousand people bear Santos (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
In which country does Santos have the most bearers?
Santos is most frequently recorded in Mexico, where it is most often spelled santos.
How common is Santos compared with other names?
In Mexico, Santos is the 59th most common surname of 198,716 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Santos mean?
Recorded meaning: Religious name meaning ‘Saints’, a name chosen to invoke the protection of all the saints for a son.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/santos

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, “Santos” — the 59th most common surname in Mexico. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Santos parses inside a full name →