Themba

Name: Themba: recorded bearers, distribution and rank
Creator: Mondonomo
Published: 2026-09-12

given name · English · Latin script

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

Themba is a given name, most frequently recorded in South Africa, where it is the 40th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Swahili, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: aus Südafrika stammender wdbl.

rarermore common

ZASouth Africa1 in 935◐
SZEswatini1 in 505
MWMalawi1 in 32K

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

: ≈27 ●
Sources: 73 ●
: 1 in 785K ◐

Meaning & origin●

aus Südafrika stammender wdbl.

Sources 1

DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

Where in the world●

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

Where Themba is recorded, by country
Country						Most common spelling	Sources
ZA South Africa	#40	36,242	40K rec.	—	listed	Themba	73
US United States	—	590	620 rec.	—	5	Themba	59
GB United Kingdom	—	134	124 rec.	—	—	Themba	31
FI Finland	—	40	0 rec.	—	20	Themba	1
AU Australia	—	34	34 rec.	—	1	Themba	12
DE Germany	—	23	19 rec.	—	1	Themba	13
ZW Zimbabwe	—	16	7 rec.	—	—	Themba	9
CA Canada	—	16	21 rec.	—	—	Themba	7
NL Netherlands	—	14	9 rec.	1 in 1.2M	14	Themba	5
NO Norway	—	14	3 rec.	—	12	Themba	4
FR France	—	14	10 rec.	—	—	Themba	11
SE Sweden	—	13△	4 rec.	1 in 785K	13	—	3
MW Malawi	—	13	7 rec.	—	—	Themba	13
SZ Eswatini	#24	12	15 rec.	—	31	Themba	7
IN India	—	11	13 rec.	—	6	Themba	3
ZM Zambia	—	10	6 rec.	—	—	Themba	8
KE Kenya	—	7	14 rec.	—	—	Themba	6
AE United Arab Emirates	—	6	4 rec.	—	—	Themba	6
LS Lesotho	—	—	0 rec.	—	1	—	2
NG Nigeria	—	—	5 rec.	—	listed	—	3

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

Languages●

English22K50%
Swahili6.7K15%
English (South Africa)6K14%
Dutch1.3K3%
Indonesian1.1K2%

Show as table

Languages in which the name is recorded
Name	Records	Note
English	21,972	50%
Swahili	6,675	15%
English (South Africa)	5,993	14%
Dutch	1,293	3%
Indonesian	1,077	2%

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◐

Themba is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

Russian given name77 records spelled Themba8 spellings in the group
Most recorded in South Africa, Tanzania, Russia
Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian
Also written Temba, Темба

38 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●

Themba is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

Hope.
as a nameThe African book of names
In Xhosa, to hope, to trust
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nr, to trust
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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.

Evidence●

Attested in 15 sources across 12 countries.

Official registers attesting Themba
Country	Register	Year	Count	Rank
SZ Eswatini	Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots	2023	31	#10
IN India	Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls	—	28	#4,372
FI Finland	DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)	—	20	#31,461
FI Finland	DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)	—	20	#30,027
NL Netherlands	Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018)	—	14	#14,610
SE Sweden	Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)	—	13	#30,846
NO Norway	SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)	—	12	#22,461
IN India	Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls	—	12	#85,862
IN India	Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls	—	6	#169,267
US United States	SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)	1996	5	—
NL Netherlands	Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)	—	5	#42,347
LS Lesotho	Lesotho IEC 2022 National Assembly candidate lists	2022	1	#20
AU Australia	SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present)	2007	1	—
DE Germany	Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene	2022	1	#2
SE Sweden	Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)	—	1	#76,797
NG Nigeria	The African Book of Names (Hodari, 2003)	—	—	—
ZA South Africa	MasakhaNER 2.0 — Zimbabwe (sna)	—	—	—
SZ Eswatini	The page lists the top 100 traditional Eswatini names along with their meanings and cultural significance, provided by K	—	—	#14

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Themba?: We estimate roughly 27 people bear Themba (counting its spellings and scripts) across 2 countries in our records.
In which country does Themba have the most bearers?: Themba is most frequently recorded in South Africa, where it is most often spelled themba.
How common is Themba compared with other names?: In South Africa, Themba is the 40th most common given name of 215,346 given names recorded there.
Is Themba a male or female name?: Themba 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 Themba mean?: Recorded meaning: aus Südafrika stammender wdbl.

Query this name via API

curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/themba

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 2026-09-12. 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, “Themba” — the 40th most common given name in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Themba parses inside a full name →