Gene
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ,° Short form of Eugene, now quite commonly used as a boy’s given name, especially in North America
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/dʒin/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gene is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 2.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.4K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 2.5K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #867 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 546 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈510,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
,° Short form of Eugene, now quite commonly used as a boy’s given name, especially in North America. It has been made familiar by film actors such as Gene Autry, Gene Hackman, Gene Kelly, and Gene Wilder. It is also occasionally used as a girl’s name, in which case it represents a respelling of Jean.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gene 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈510,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Gene | 25 |
| US United States | #334 | 64,474 | 1 in 5.2K | 62K | Gene | 546 |
| PH Philippines | #913 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | — | Gene | 116 |
| GB United Kingdom | #490 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | 5 | Gene | 150 |
| IT Italy | #658 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | listed | Gene | 43 |
| CA Canada | #376 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | 5 | Gene | 178 |
| SG Singapore | #214 | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Gene | 67 |
| IE Ireland | #221 | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | — | Gene | 50 |
| NZ New Zealand | #287 | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 12 | Gene | 84 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); the ca-statcan-baby-names register; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Gene 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, from a reduced form of the personal name Eugene (see Eugene).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A theoretical unit of heredity of living organisms which may take several values and (in principle) predetermines a precise trait of an organism's form (phenotype), such as hair color.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Significado: El que está alegre y contento
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Akan, u e ii e ii, adv,, n., tingling ; but s. gy6nennyenen. agegenu [G.] dokono a woahono no ne ewo ana asikre afra, a kind of pap or thick beverage made of water, bread, and honey or sugar
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
English: short form of EUGENE , now quite commonly used as an independent given name in America. It has been made familiar especially by film stars such as Gene Autry, Gene Hackman, and Gene Wilder.
as a word
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)
- Gene Tierneyb. 1920USAmerican actress (1920–1991)
- Gene Roddenberryb. 1921USAmerican television screenwriter and producer (1921–1991)
- Gene Saksb. 1921USAmerican stage and film director (1921–2015)
- Gene Hackmanb. 1930USAmerican actor and novelist (1930–2025)
- Gene Wilderb. 1933USAmerican actor (1933–2016)
- Red Westb. 1936USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, film stuntman and songwriter (1936-2017)
- Gene Simmonsb. 1949USIsraeli-American musician and songwriter (born 1949)
- Hulk Hoganb. 1953USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler, actor and television personality (1953–2025)
- Norm Macdonaldb. 1959CAnot in their usual nameCanadian comedian (1959–2021)
- Demi Mooreb. 1962USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and producer (born 1962)
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 70 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 62K | #771 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.6K | #771 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 63 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1997 | 12 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2023 | 5 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 3 | #727 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2023 | 3 | #395 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- 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 are other forms of the name Gene?
- In the etymology graph, Eugenio, Eugen and Eugeniusz are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Eugene.
- What does the name Gene mean, and where does it come from?
- ,° Short form of Eugene, now quite commonly used as a boy’s given name, especially in North America. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Gene a male or female name?
- Gene 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.
- How common is the name Gene?
- In the United States, the national register counted 64,474 people named Gene in 2020, about 1 in 5.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Gene compared with other names?
- In Singapore, Gene is the 214th most common given name of 52,448 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Gene?
- A machine transcription gives /dʒin/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Gene have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 508 thousand people named Gene in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gene.
What do you want to know about Gene?
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/geneThe 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, “Gene” — the 214th most common given name in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.