René
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: From Latin; means “reborn, born to a new life”
A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 37 countries · latest register: INSEE, 2022
/ʁeˈneː/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
René is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Guatemala it is the 6th most common given name.
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 300(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 413
- ATAustria≈1 in 550
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 René itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #162 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 598 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 302 (inferred from the name graph)
164,460 named Renee, 2020
of 15M given names, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
El Salvador, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Rene in FR France, DE Germany, PH Philippines and 4 more and Renee in US United States, DK Denmark.
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)From Latin; means “reborn, born to a new life.”
Cited for this meaning 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
How René is read
(measured from records)René is one spelling over 5 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.
- French30%
From Latin; means “reborn, born to a new life.”
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From Latin Renatus, meaning 'born again'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Du latin renatus, « né de nouveau »; associé au baptême et à la renaissance spirituelle. Fête/saint René.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Du latin Renatus, «né de nouveau»; fête le 19 octobre (saint René d’Angers).
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Du latin *renatus* « renaissant, né de nouveau ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
- German30%
No dictionary in our sources glosses René in German.
- Spanish20%
- Danish6.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses René in Danish.
- Dutch5.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses René in Dutch.
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)René 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 | #103 | 164,460as Renee | 1 in 2K | 163K | Renee | 598 |
| PH Philippines | #110 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 992 | — | Rene | 128 |
| DE Germany | #107 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 739 | 3 | Rene | 268 |
| FR France | #70 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 985 | 516K | Rene | 339 |
| NL Netherlands | #16 | 41,854 | 1 in 413 | 41K | Rene | 163 |
| SV El Salvador | #49 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 302 | — | Rene | 71 |
| GT Guatemala | #6 | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 913 | — | Rene | 71 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 18,704 | 1 in 572 | 19K | — | 3 |
| AT Austria | #70 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 548 | 8.9K | Rene | 157 |
| DK Denmark | #700 | 9,478 | 1 in 619 | 9.5K | Renee | 51 |
164,460 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); the de-duesseldorf-vornamen register; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); MVČR — living population register 2017; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)- François-René de Chateaubriandb. 1768FRFrench writer, politician and historian (1768–1848)
- Auguste Rodinb. 1840FRnot in their usual nameFrench sculptor (1840–1917)
- René Guénonb. 1886FRFrench metaphysician (1886-1951)
- René Lacosteb. 1904FRFrench tennis player
- René Goscinnyb. 1926FRFrench comic book artist and author (1926-1977)
- Valéry Giscard d'Estaingb. 1926FRnot in their usual nameFrench official and politician (1926–2020)
- Jacques Chiracb. 1932FRnot in their usual namePresident of France from 1995 to 2007
- René Prévalb. 1943HTEx-President of Haiti (1943-2017)
- François Bayroub. 1951FRnot in their usual nameformer Prime Minister of France (2024–2025)
- René Higuitab. 1966COColombian footballer
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)53 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2022 | 516K | #3,106 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 41K | #55 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 19K | #142 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 9.5K | #74 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 9.4K | #160 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 9.4K | #160 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 790 | #1,508 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1935 | 265 | #640 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2020 | 3 | — |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 2 | #2 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2010 | 1 | — |
| CZ Czechia | CZSO — 100 nejčetnějších dětských jmen (top 100 baby names 2024) | 2019 | — | #196 |
Reference works 3
- 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
- Is René a male or female name?
- René is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: France (INSEE, 2022), Netherlands (Meertens NVB), Denmark (Danmarks Statistik) and Finland (DVV), among others.
- How do you pronounce René?
- It depends on the language: in German /ʁeˈneː/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /reˈne/ (Wiktionary); in Dutch /rəneː/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- What does the name René mean, and where does it come from?
- From Latin; means “reborn, born to a new life.” Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What are other forms of the name René?
- In the etymology graph, Renato, Renat and Renatus are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does René have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 164 thousand people named Renee, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name René?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 41,854 people named René, about 1 in 413 residents.
- How common is René compared with other names?
- In the United States, René is the 103rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about René?
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/ren%C3%A9The 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, “René” — the 103rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.