Rene

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in Spanish: kidney

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/rene/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Rene is a 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.

rarermore common
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 302(inferred from the name graph)
  • NLNetherlands1 in 413
  • ATAustria≈1 in 548

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 Rene 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)

164,460 named Renee, 2020

#162 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

6 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
598 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 302 (inferred from the name graph)

El Salvador, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ReneeLatin(measured from records)
רנהHebrew(measured from records)
เรเนThai(measured from records)
르네Hangul(measured from records)
ΡενέGreek(measured from records)
რენეGeorgian(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled 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)

borne by a 4th-cent. saint, and popular in France through¬ out the Middle Ages because of its transparent reference to Christian spiritual rebirth. Var.: Resnais (a hypercorrected form). Renisch see Raine Vars. (of 2): Reiss, Reisman(n). Renison see Rainey

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

How Rene is read(measured from records)

Rene is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • Spanish39%

    kidney

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

  • English29%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Rene in English.

  • French14%

    borne by a 4th-cent. saint, and popular in France through¬ out the Middle Ages because of its transparent reference to Christian spiritual rebirth. Var.: Resnais (a hypercorrected form). Renisch see Raine Vars. (of 2): Reiss, Reisman(n). Renison see Rainey

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • German5.7%

    nominative/accusative/genitive plural of Ren

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

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)

Rene 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 Rene is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#103164,460as Renee1 in 2K163KRenee598
PH Philippines#110≈110,000 est.≈1 in 992—Rene128
DE Germany#107≈110,000 est.≈1 in 739—Rene268
FR France#70≈69,000 est.≈1 in 985516KRene339
NL Netherlands#1641,8541 in 41341KRene163
SV El Salvador#49≈21,000 est.≈1 in 302—Rene71
GT Guatemala#6≈19,000 est.≈1 in 913—Rene71
CZ Czechia—18,7041 in 57219K—3
AT Austria#70≈16,000 est.≈1 in 5488.9KRene157
DK Denmark#7009,4781 in 6199.5KRenee51

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); 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).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Rene is also recorded as 9 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name16 spellings in the group

    Also written Renè, René, Reńe, Rene', Ṛěnē

  • Czech given name90 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, United States, Slovakia, Croatia

    Languages: Czech, Russian, Slovak

    Also written René, Рене, Renee, Renae, Resnais

  • Danish given name28 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Norway, Sweden

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish

    Also written René, Renè, Rene', Réné, Rene’

  • Swahili given name22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Africa, Philippines, Peru

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho, Kinyarwanda

    Also written René, Renè, Rene', Réné, Rènè

  • Italian given name10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States, Netherlands, Switzerland

    Also written Renè, René, Rene', Reñé, Renê

  • French (Côte d’Ivoire) given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Côte d’Ivoire

    Also written René, Réné

  • Turkish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, United States, Netherlands, Syria

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written René, Rene'

  • Catalan given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina

    Also written Reñé, Reñe, René

  • a separate given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Ecuador, United Kingdom, Bolivia

    Also written René, Renè, Réné, Renê, Renë

64 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)

Rene is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Romanian, subst., termen geografic (plaj5), formeaza toponime : Renia (Ard), Renea, o insula §i citeva paduri etc., Reni ora§, dar §i antroponime 1. Alexandrescu act. ; Moldoveanu, prenume ; Renle, -ea, -escu (R Gr) ; -ea, V. 1804, bra§ovean, neg. in Bucurejti. 2. Renie 1722 ard. (Pa§) ; - de Herseni (Pu§c. Frag. IV) 3. Renes mr. (Cara 82). 4. Rinie ard., 1633 (Pas) ; Rinesti s. (Gr Buc).

    as a nameDictionar Onomastic Rominesc

  • In enm, alternative form of reyn (“boundary”)

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

  • In Swedish, definite natural masculine singular of ren

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

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)

18001850190019502000Auguste Rodin, b. 1840René Guénon, b. 1886René Lacoste, b. 1904René Goscinny, b. 1926Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, b. 1926Jacques Chirac, b. 1932René Préval, b. 1943François Bayrou, b. 1951René Higuita, b. 1966Jen Psaki, b. 1978

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)

InformalHola Rene,Hi Rene, (English)

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)

Attested in 102 sources across 53 countries.

Reference works 6

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 Rene a male or female name?
Rene is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
How do you pronounce Rene?
A machine transcription gives /rene/ (IPA) for Spanish.
Where does the name Rene come from?
borne by a 4th-cent. saint, and popular in France through¬ out the Middle Ages because of its transparent reference to Christian spiritual rebirth. Var.: Resnais (a hypercorrected form). Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
What does the name Rene mean?
In Spanish, kidney
In which country does Rene 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 Rene?
In the Netherlands, the national register counted 41,854 people named Rene, about 1 in 413 residents.
How common is Rene compared with other names?
In the United States, Rene is the 103rd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Rene?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/rene

The 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, “Rene” — the 103rd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Rene parses inside a full name →