Holy

loc · Latin script

Meaning: nickname from holy ‘naked’, ‘bare’, ‘cleanshaven’, in various senses: denoting either a young, beardless man, a bald or cleanshaven man, or a destitute person

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Holy is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Czechia than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • CZCzechia1 in 3.2K(measured from records)
  • SKSlovakia1 in 13K
  • ZMZambia≈1 in 132K

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.

Czechia (measured from records)

3,369 people

Sources
68 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 3.2K (inferred from the name graph)

Czechia

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 Holý in CZ Czechia, SK Slovakia.

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)

nickname from holy ‘naked’, ‘bare’, ‘cleanshaven’, in various senses: denoting either a young, beardless man, a bald or cleanshaven man, or a destitute person.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Holy 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 Holy is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CZ Czechia#8193,3691 in 3.2K3.4KHolý62
US United States—8291 in 401K858—68
SK Slovakia—4211 in 13K421Holý19
ZM Zambia—≈130 est.≈1 in 132K1——
GB United Kingdom—≈110 est.≈1 in 593Klisted—14
HR Croatia—221 in 192K26——
SI Slovenia—131 in 162K13—1

3,369 people counted by MVČR — living population register 2017. 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: MVČR — living population register 2017; naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); DZS — Učestalost prezimena (Popis 2021); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); ECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results; the gb-nisra-baby-names-ni register. 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)

Holy is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Höly, Hoely, Holý, Hôly, Hölÿ

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Holý, Höly, Hölÿ, Hồly

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Hólÿ, Holý

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Holý

  • Hindi name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Höly, Holý

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Höly, Hölÿ, Holý

39 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Holy is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Quran

    as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman

  • In enm, Dedicated to or separated for a religious purpose; sacred, consecrated.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Dutch, a neighbourhood of Vlaardingen, South Holland, Netherlands

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, Dedicated to a religious purpose or a god.

    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)

188019001920194019601980Adrien Holy, b. 1898Zima Vrščaj Holy, b. 1912Jochen Holy, b. 1942Mirela Holy, b. 1971

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 42 sources across 27 countries.

Official registers attesting Holy
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020299#24,891
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202085#24,891
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201415—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202214—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201714—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201913—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201812—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202510—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)201810—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20249—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20169—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20208—

Reference works 4

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 Holy mean, and where does it come from?
nickname from holy ‘naked’, ‘bare’, ‘cleanshaven’, in various senses: denoting either a young, beardless man, a bald or cleanshaven man, or a destitute person. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
In which country does Holy have the most bearers?
In Czechia, the national register counted about 3.4 thousand people named Holy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled holý.
Where is Holy most common?
Holy is densest in Czechia, where the national register counts about 1 in 3.2 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Holy?
In Czechia, the national register counted 3,369 people named Holy, about 1 in 3.2 thousand residents.
How common is Holy compared with other names?
In Czechia, Holy is the 819th most common surname of 114,573 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Holy?

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

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, “Holy” — the 819th most common surname in Czechia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Holy parses inside a full name →