Šamu

surname · Latin script

Šamu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Shortening of Sámuel.

rarermore common
  • FIFinland1 in 888(measured from records)
  • SESweden1 in 537K
  • DKDenmark1 in 978K

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Finland (measured from records)

6,277 people

Sources
5 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 888 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Samu in FI Finland.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Shortening of Sámuel.

Sources 3

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Šamu counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Šamu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FI Finland6,2771 in 8886.4KSamu4
US United States1341 in 2.5M350—2
BR Brazil431 in 4.9M112——
SE Sweden191 in 537K19——
PL Poland71 in 5.5M15——
DK Denmark61 in 978K10——

6,277 people counted by DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register). Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

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

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

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

  • Slovenian given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India

    Also written Samu

  • Hungarian given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Hungary, Italy, United States

    Also written Samu, Sámú

  • English given name25 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Germany, Finland

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Samu, Samue, Sàmù, Šâmü, Samú

  • Italian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, Finland, United States

    Also written Samu, Samù, Šämû

3 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.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 4 sources across 2 countries.

Reference works 1

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007

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

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Šamu mean, and where does it come from?
Shortening of Sámuel. Recorded by Wiktionary and Családnevek enciklopédiája and 1 other source.
In which country does Šamu have the most bearers?
In Finland, the national register counted about 6.3 thousand people named Šamu, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled samu.
Where is Šamu most common?
Šamu is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 888 people carrying it.
How common is the name Šamu?
In Finland, the national register counted 6,277 people named Šamu, about 1 in 888 residents.

What do you want to know about Šamu?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/%C5%A1amu

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

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, “Šamu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Šamu parses inside a full name →