Innocent
given name · Latin script
Meaning: harmless, innocent; name of several saints and popes
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as male
- France (INSEE, 1963): listed as male
- Norway (SSB): listed as male
- Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 42 countries · latest register: SSA, 2023
/inɔkɛnt/(machine-generated) Swahili · model-generated · uncertain
Innocent is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- TZTanzania≈1 in 880(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 1.1K
- MWMalawi≈1 in 1.3Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 249 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 882 (inferred from the name graph)
≈210,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Tanzania, 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)harmless, innocent; name of several saints and popes
Cited for this meaning 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Innocent 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #190 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Innocent | 111 |
| TZ Tanzania | #621 | ≈78,000 est. | ≈1 in 882 | 2 | Innocent | 38 |
| ZA South Africa | #389 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | listed | Innocent | 58 |
| MW Malawi | #137 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Innocent | 17 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Innocent | 13 |
| ZM Zambia | #469 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | 22 | Innocent | 17 |
| US United States | — | 1,239 | 1 in 268K | 2K | Innocent | 249 |
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: the za-statssa-births register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results; ECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate 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)Innocent 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 the personal name Innocent, from Latin Innocentius, from innocens ‘harmless’, ‘non-violent’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Free from guilt, sin, or immorality.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Du nom latin Innocentius, dérivé de innocens « vertueux, probe, innocent ».
as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition
In French, Latin Innocentius, de innocens « innocent, sans faute ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Origine latine, « inoffensif ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)- Innocentius Ib. 400ITnot in their usual nameearly medieval pope (???-417)
- Innocent IIb. 1100ITPope of the Catholic Church (1130–1143)
- Innocent Vb. 1225FR185th Pope of the Catholic Church
- Innocent VIb. 1282FRpope of the Catholic Church from 1353 to 1362
- Innocentius VIIIb. 1432ITnot in their usual namepope of the Catholic Church from 1484 to 1492
- Innocent IXb. 1519ITpope of the Catholic Church in 1591 (1519–1591)
- Innocentius Xb. 1574ITnot in their usual namepope from 1644 to 1655
- Innocent XIIIb. 1655ITpope of the Catholic Church from 1721 to 1724
- Innocent of Alaskab. 1797RURussian bishop and saint (1797–1879)
- Black Coffeeb. 1976ZAnot in their usual nameSouth African DJ and record producer
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)68 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.2K | #10,657 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 77 | #10,657 |
| ZM Zambia | ECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results | 2021 | 22 | #23 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2019 | 5 | — |
| TZ Tanzania | INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results | 2020 | 2 | #28 |
| ZA South Africa | Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames | 2022 | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- What does the name Innocent mean, and where does it come from?
- harmless, innocent; name of several saints and popes Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- How do you pronounce Innocent?
- In Swahili /inɔkɛnt/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- What are other forms of the name Innocent?
- In the etymology graph, Inocencio, Innocenzo and Innocentius are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Innocent a male or female name?
- Innocent is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed as male; France (INSEE, 1963): listed as male; Norway (SSB): listed as male; Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Innocent have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 208 thousand people named Innocent in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled innocent.
- How common is the name Innocent?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,239 people named Innocent in 2020, about 1 in 268 thousand residents.
- How common is Innocent compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Innocent is the 190th most common given name of 138,191 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Innocent?
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/innocentThe 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, “Innocent” — the 190th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.