Master
org · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Master is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malawi than in any other country. Recorded meaning: behaved in a masterful manner, or occupational name for someone who was master of his craft, from ME maister (OF maistre, L magister).
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 62K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 89K
- CACanada≈1 in 116K
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.
- Malawi (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 338 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈11,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Malawi, 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)
behaved in a masterful manner, or occupational name for someone who was master of his craft, from ME maister (OF maistre, L magister). In early instances this surname was often borne by people who were franklins or other sub¬ stantial freeholders, presumably because they had labourers under them to work their lands, and unlike smaller free tenants did not just till their property them¬ selves. In Scotland the eldest sons of barons had this title, and the name may also have been acquired as an occupa¬ tional nickname by a servant who worked in the household of the eldest son of a baron. Var.: Meystre. Cogns.: Fr.: Maistre, Maitre; Lemaistre, Lemaitre; Maitrier. Prov.: Mestre, Mistre; Mestrier. It.: Maestri, Maestro; Maistri, Maistro (Venetia); Ma(i)sto (Naples), Magistri, Magistro (Lombardy); Mastro, Marro (S Italy); Mascio (Apulia, Salento); Lo Mast(r)o (Sicily). Sp.: Maestre, Maeso. Cat.: Maestre, Mestre(s). Port.: Mestre. Ger.: Meister. Low Ger.: Me(e)ster. Flem., Du.: (De) Meester.
Sources 6
- A dictionary of surnames
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
- Wiktionary
Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Master 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MW Malawi | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 1 | — | 8 |
| US United States | 2,735 | 1 in 122K | 2.7K | Master | 338 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 89K | listed | Master | 113 |
| UG Uganda | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 85K | — | Master | 4 |
| CA Canada | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | Master | 73 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | ≈280 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Master | 32 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Master | 8 |
| SG Singapore | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 60K | — | Master | 22 |
| BH Bahrain | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 49K | — | Master | 3 |
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; 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)
- Thomas Masterb. 1603GBPriest, poet and translator
- Streynsham Masterb. 1640GBBritish colonial administrator; (1640-1724)
- Thomas Masterb. 1663GBEnglish politician
- Thomas Masterb. 1690GBEnglish politician (1690-1770)
- Thomas Masterb. 1717GBBritish politician (1717-1749)
- Kurt Masterb. 1901DEGerman actor, voice actor and author (1901-1961)
- Edith Masterb. 1932USAmerican equestrian
- Renato Masterb. 1939BRBrazilian actor
- Adam Masterb. 1975USinventor and medical scientist
- Tereza Masterb. 1988MWathlete (* 1988)
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 38 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 544 | #18,867 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 23 | #18,867 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 9 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Master mean?
- Recorded meaning: behaved in a masterful manner, or occupational name for someone who was master of his craft, from ME maister (OF maistre, L magister).
- In which country does Master have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 11 thousand people named Master in Malawi, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Master?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,735 people named Master in 2010, about 1 in 122 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Master?
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/masterThe 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, “Master”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.