Imbo

surname · Latin script

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

Imbo is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country. In Swahili, recorded as song.

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 84K(inferred from the name graph)
  • RERéunion≈1 in 13K
  • BEBelgium1 in 110K

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.

Philippines (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,300 people, est.

Sources
75 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)

Réunion, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

An idiot, a fool.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

How Imbo is read(measured from records)

Imbo is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • Swahili35%

    song

    as a wordBantu Lexical Reconstructions 3 (BLR3), Tervuren 2002/2003

  • English32%

    An idiot, a fool.

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

  • French13%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Imbo in French.

  • Spanish11%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Imbo in Spanish.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Imbo 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 Imbo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PH Philippines≈1,300 est.≈1 in 84K—Imbo21
KE Kenya≈370 est.≈1 in 146K—Imbo11
FR France≈140 est.≈1 in 476K16—1
US United States1121 in 3M112Imbo75
BE Belgium1071 in 110K107Imbo10
RE Réunion≈61 est.≈1 in 13K—Imbo1

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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)

Imbo is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Brazil, Portugal

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Imbó, Imbò

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Imbó, Imbò

  • Italian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, Philippines, United States

    Also written Imbò, Imbo', Imbó

  • Thai surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, Philippines

    Also written อิมโบ, อัมโบ, Imbó, อมโบ, Imbö

26 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)

Imbo 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.

  • In Malagasy, a strong and offensive odor, but less strong than _hantsina_

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In ilb, song; dance

    as a wordBantu Lexical Reconstructions 3 (BLR3), Tervuren 2002/2003

  • In mxc, dance

    as a wordBantu Lexical Reconstructions 3 (BLR3), Tervuren 2002/2003

  • In men, disobedience, re

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

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)

188019001920194019601980Giuseppe Imbò, b. 1899Frederik Imbo, b. 1975Lisbeth Imbo, b. 1976

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 7 sources across 4 countries.

Reference works 1

  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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

Where does the name Imbo come from?
An idiot, a fool. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What does the name Imbo mean?
In Swahili, song
In which country does Imbo have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.3 thousand people named Imbo in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled imbo.
How common is the name Imbo?
In the United States, the national register counted 112 people named Imbo in 2010, about 1 in 3.0 million residents.

What do you want to know about Imbo?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/imbo

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Imbo”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Imbo parses inside a full name →