Esau
given name · Latin script
Meaning: In Jewish and Christian theology, Esau often represents the rejection of the covenant or the choice of the flesh over the spirit
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/esau/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Esau is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country.
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 6.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- GTGuatemala≈1 in 10K
- HNHonduras≈1 in 16K
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.
- Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 194 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 6.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
El Salvador, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
In Jewish and Christian theology, Esau often represents the rejection of the covenant or the choice of the flesh over the spirit. Romans 9:13 cites Malachi 1:2-3 ('Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated') to illustrate God's sovereign election.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Esau, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Esau 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈6,600 est. | ≈1 in 8.8K | 1 | Esau | 9 |
| CN China | — | ≈4,800 est. | ≈1 in 291K | — | Esau | 2 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Esau | 21 |
| US United States | — | 3,018 | 1 in 110K | 3K | Esau | 194 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Esau | 5 |
| GT Guatemala | #186 | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Esau | 22 |
| SV El Salvador | #267 | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.4K | — | Esau | 34 |
| HN Honduras | #267 | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Esau | 26 |
| GY Guyana | — | 75 | 1 in 10K | 75 | — | — |
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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results. 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)
Esau 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.
The name 'Esau' is traditionally linked to the Hebrew root for 'do' or 'make', but popularly associated with 'hairy' (Hebrew 'se'ar') due to Genesis 25:25. 'Edom' means 'Red', derived from the red stew he traded his birthright for.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Historically rare in Judeo-Christian cultures due to the negative biblical connotation of selling one's birthright, though occasionally used.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, The hairy one; the son of Isaac, brother of Jacob, in the Bible
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, The son of Isaac and Rebekah and the older twin brother of Jacob.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, from Hebrew ʿēśāv 'hairy' / 'hair man'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Esau de' Buondelmontib. 1355FRDespot of Epirus
- Esau Jenkinsb. 1910USAmerican activist
- Esau Mannb. 1971NZTongan rugby league footballer
- Esau McCaulleyb. 1979USprofessor of New Testament
- Esau Tjiuorob. 1982NANamibian footballer
- Esaú García Álvarezb. 1987ESassociation football player
- Óscar Duarteb. 1989CRnot in their usual nameassociation football player
- Gaya Esaub. 1998CMresearcher
- Damián Riverab. 2002USnot in their usual nameGuatemalan association football player (born 2002)
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 53 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 3K | #5,611 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 75 | #519 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 37 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13 | #5,611 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Esau mean, and where does it come from?
- In Jewish and Christian theology, Esau often represents the rejection of the covenant or the choice of the flesh over the spirit. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- How do you pronounce Esau?
- A machine transcription gives /esau/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Is Esau a male or female name?
- Esau 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.
- In which country does Esau have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.6 thousand people named Esau in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled esau.
- How common is the name Esau?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,018 people named Esau in 2020, about 1 in 110 thousand residents.
- How common is Esau compared with other names?
- In Guatemala, Esau is the 186th most common given name of 22,774 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Esau?
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/esauThe 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, “Esau” — the 186th most common given name in Guatemala. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.