Hem
given name · Latin script
Meaning: unexplained
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/hɛm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hem is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 537K(measured from records)
- NPNepal≈1 in 1.2K
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 84K
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.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 140 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈24,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nepal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Hemu in BD Bangladesh.
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)
unexplained.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hem 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Hem | 55 |
| BD Bangladesh | ≈910 est. | ≈1 in 178K | — | Hemu | 12 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 391K | — | Hem | 18 |
| US United States | 619 | 1 in 537K | 1.1K | Hem | 109 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 87K | — | Hem | 17 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈87 est. | ≈1 in 84K | — | Hem | 4 |
| GY Guyana | 6 | 1 in 125K | 6 | — | — |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Hem 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 Akan, V. to bloto one's nose; gh6m no fwenem, he blows his nose
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In Indonesian, shirt, an article of clothing that is worn on the upper part of the body, and often has sleeves, either long or short, that cover the arms
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, him; third-person singular masculine objective personal pronoun
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Used to fill in the gap of a pause with a vocalized sound.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Catalan, first-person plural present indicative of haver
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Narie Hemb. 1937KHactor
- Tore Hemb. 1944NONorwegian wrestler
- Knut Hemb. 1963NONorwegian musician
- Per Eivind Hemb. 1963NONorwegian historian
- Erlend Hemb. 1970NONorwegian professor
- Mikal Hemb. 1973NONorwegian journalist
- Billy Hemb. 1976NONorwegian writer
- Hem Buntingb. 1985KHathletics competitor
- Caroline Elisabeth Hemb. 1986NObadminton player
- Carl Christian Hemb. 1993NObadminton 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).
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 36 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 485 | #17,668 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 134 | #17,668 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 6 | #588 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Hem mean, and where does it come from?
- unexplained. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hem?
- A machine transcription gives /hɛm/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Hem a male or female name?
- Hem is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Hem have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 24 thousand people named Hem in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hem.
- How common is the name Hem?
- In the United States, the national register counted 619 people named Hem in 2020, about 1 in 537 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Hem?
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/hemThe 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, “Hem”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.