Méndez
surname · Latin script
Meaning: a surname originating as a patronymic
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 7 countries
/mend̪es/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Méndez is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Angola it is the 18th most common surname.
- UYUruguay1 in 86(measured from records)
- CRCosta Rica1 in 114
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 182
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Méndez itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #154 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 468 (measured from records)
- 1 in 86 (inferred from the name graph)
161,717 people, 2010
of 19M surnames, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Mendez in US United States, AR Argentina, VE Venezuela and 4 more and Mendes in PT Portugal, AO Angola.
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)a surname originating as a patronymic
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Méndez 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #202 | 161,717 | 1 in 2.1K | 166K | Mendez | 468 |
| VE Venezuela | #37 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 240 | 775 | Mendez | 116 |
| AR Argentina | #70 | 90,174 | 1 in 504 | 90K | Mendez | 143 |
| ES Spain | #47 | 77,195 | 1 in 648 | 77K | Mendez | 223 |
| CO Colombia | #80 | ≈73,000 est. | ≈1 in 672 | 56 | Mendez | 170 |
| PT Portugal | #23 | ≈55,000 est. | ≈1 in 186 | — | Mendes | 199 |
| CR Costa Rica | #26 | 44,680 | 1 in 114 | 45K | Mendez | 126 |
| UY Uruguay | #473 | 39,366 | 1 in 86 | 39K | Méndez | 89 |
| SV El Salvador | #37 | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 182 | 38K | Mendez | 75 |
| AO Angola | #18 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 2 | Mendes | 65 |
| GW Guinea-Bissau | — | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 108 | 85K | — | 31 |
161,717 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); asosab — SAIME ID-card names (1896–1996); El Salvador top-100 surnames (surnam.es / RNPN-derived); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); the co-datosgov-candidates register; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; A comprehensive look at the most common surnames in Guinea-Bissau, compiled by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística de; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Justo Sierrab. 1848MXnot in their usual nameMexican writer, journalist, poet and political figure (1848–1912)
- Arnaldo Tamayo Méndezb. 1942CUCuban cosmonaut
- Fernando Lugob. 1951PYnot in their usual name47.° President of Paraguay
- Eva Mendesb. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and model (born 1974)
- Raúl Méndezb. 1975MXMexican actor
- Marco Méndezb. 1976MXMexican actor and model
- Joan Capdevilab. 1978ESnot in their usual nameSpanish footballer
- Denny Méndezb. 1978DODominican Republic model and actor
- Brais Méndezb. 1997ESSpanish association football player
- Jhegson Méndezb. 1997ECEcuadorian association football 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)Evidence
(measured from records)13 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 7 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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 Méndez mean, and where does it come from?
- a surname originating as a patronymic Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Méndez?
- A machine transcription gives /mend̪es/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Méndez have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 162 thousand people named Méndez, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mendez.
- Where is Méndez most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Méndez is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 86 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Méndez?
- In the United States, the national register counted 161,717 people named Méndez in 2010, about 1 in 2.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Méndez compared with other names?
- In the United States, Méndez is the 202nd most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Méndez?
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/m%C3%A9ndezThe 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, “Méndez” — the 202nd most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.