Diego
loc · Latin script
Meaning: from Diet-, i.e. Germanic 'people'; also used for Jacob
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Diego is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- COColombia≈1 in 188(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina≈1 in 166
- CLChile≈1 in 173
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 487 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 166 (inferred from the name graph)
403,169 people, 2022
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Argentina, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Dïëgö in EC Ecuador and Díego in AR Argentina.
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)
from Diet-, i.e. Germanic 'people'; also used for Jacob
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Diego 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 403,169 | 1 in 525 | 424K | Diego | 240 |
| AR Argentina | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 166 | 1.4K | Díego | 228 |
| CO Colombia | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 188 | — | Diego | 223 |
| ES Spain | 157,540 | 1 in 317 | 158K | Diego | 278 |
| US United States | 129,961 | 1 in 2.6K | 130K | Diego | 487 |
| CL Chile | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 173 | 878 | Diego | 202 |
| EC Ecuador | 97,028 | 1 in 174 | 97K | Dïëgö | 127 |
| PY Paraguay | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 177 | — | Diego | 85 |
403,169 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Diego 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 French, Spanish form related to Santiago; ultimately from Latin Iacobus
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Origin uncertain; perhaps from SANTIAGO (literally ‘Saint James’) or from a 283 native Iberian name found in Latin as Didacus.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Italian, Nome di un santo spagnolo; reso in latino come Didacus o Didicius, forse per traduzione arbitraria.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Swedish, Diego, som är ett vanligt namn i spansktalande länder, anses av senare forskning vara en utveckling av det förromerska mansnamnet Didacus (belagt i det medeltida Spanien) via formen Diago. Den tidigare uppfattningen att namnet skulle vara en form av Iago (→ Jakob) har ifrågasatts. En känd namnbärare är den argentinske fotbollsspelaren Diego Maradona (1960–2020).
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Italian, Nome di un Santo spagnuolo, m. 1463; 13 novembre. È tradotto in latino Didacus o Diduciua; ma forse l& traduzione è arbitraria.
as a nameNomi e Cognomi: Saggio di ricerche etimologiche e storiche
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Diego Velázquezb. 1599ESSpanish painter (1599–1660)
- Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano de la Santissima Trinidad Ruiz Blasco Picassob. 1881ESSpanish painter and sculptor (1881–1973)
- Diego Riverab. 1886MXMexican muralist (1886–1957)
- Diego Fabbrib. 1911ITItalian writer (1911-1980)
- Diego Maradonab. 1960ARArgentine football player and manager (1960–2020)
- Diego Forlánb. 1979UYUruguayan association football player and manager (born 1979)
- Diego Militob. 1979ARArgentine football player (1979-)
- Diego Luganob. 1980UYUruguayan footballer
- Diego Godínb. 1986UYUruguayan association football player (born 1986)
- Diego Costab. 1988BRBrazilian association football player
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(measured from records)
Attested in 129 sources across 62 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 424K | #103 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 403K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 401K | #68 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 158K | #54 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 155K | #31 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 130K | #434 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 97K | #12 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 7.3K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 2.4K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.9K | #68 |
| CL Chile | SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) | 2021 | 878 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 517 | #278 |
Reference works 8
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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
- In which country does Diego have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 403 thousand people named Diego, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled diego.
- What does the name Diego mean, and where does it come from?
- from Diet-, i.e. Germanic 'people'; also used for Jacob Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How common is the name Diego?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 403,169 people named Diego in 2022, about 1 in 525 residents.
What do you want to know about Diego?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/diegoThe 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, “Diego”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.