Ricardo
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Portuguese: a male given name, equivalent to English Richard
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/rikaɾðo/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ricardo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 9th most common given name.
- PTPortugal≈1 in 92(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 493
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 105as Richard
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 Ricardo 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)
- #25 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 702 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 92 (inferred from the name graph)
1,575,998 named Richard, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Portugal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Richard in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada and 3 more.
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 male given name from Portuguese or Spanish, equivalent to English Richard.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
How Ricardo is read(measured from records)
Ricardo is one spelling over 3 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.
- Spanish61%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Ricardo in Spanish.
- Portuguese19%
a male given name, equivalent to English Richard
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Amsterdam, Curaçao, London, England, Venezuela
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
- English11%
A male given name from Portuguese or Spanish, equivalent to English Richard.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
David, British economist
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
Ricardo 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 | #9 | 1,575,998as Richard | 1 in 211 | 1.6M | Richard | 702 |
| GB United Kingdom | #9 | ≈630,000 est. | ≈1 in 105 | 3.8K | Richard | 469 |
| BR Brazil | #29 | 429,575 | 1 in 493 | 470K | Ricardo | 287 |
| PH Philippines | #7 | ≈380,000 est. | ≈1 in 290 | — | Richard | 195 |
| CA Canada | #9 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 139 | 17 | Richard | 355 |
| PT Portugal | #13 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 92 | listed | Ricardo | 258 |
| NZ New Zealand | #8 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 108 | — | Richard | 227 |
| IE Ireland | #7 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 120 | — | Richard | 183 |
1,575,998 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; the pt-irn-lista-nomes register. 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)
Ricardo is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Ricardo (Riccardo) är italienska, portugisiska och spanska former av → Richard.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In French, Forme hispanique de Richard; germanique ric- + hard- « puissant, fort ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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)
- Pablo Nerudab. 1904CLnot in their usual nameChilean poet and politician (1904-1973)
- Javier Pérez de Cuéllarb. 1920PEnot in their usual name5th Secretary-General of the United Nations (1920-2020)
- Raúl Alfonsínb. 1927ARnot in their usual nameArgentine politician
- Ricardo Lagosb. 1938CLChilean politician, president of Chile from 2000 to 2006
- Ricardo Martinellib. 1952PA36th president of Panama from 2009 to 2014
- Ricardob. 1976PTPortuguese footballer and coach
- Ricardo Carvalhob. 1978PTPortuguese footballer
- Ricardo Costab. 1981PTPortuguese footballer
- Kakáb. 1982BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian association football player (born 1982)
- Ricardo Quaresmab. 1983PTPortuguese association football player (born 1983)
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)
Attested in 120 sources across 58 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 470K | #79 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 430K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 428K | #62 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 190K | #293 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 4.4K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.6K | #62 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 833 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 354 | #293 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 14 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 1 | #2,319 |
| PT Portugal | IRN — Lista de Nomes Próprios admitidos | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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 Ricardo mean?
- In Portuguese, a male given name, equivalent to English Richard
- Where does the name Ricardo come from?
- A male given name from Portuguese or Spanish, equivalent to English Richard. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Ricardo have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.6 million people named Richard, more than in any other country we hold.
- What are other forms of the name Ricardo?
- In the etymology graph, Richard, Rick and Ricky are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Ricardo?
- A machine transcription gives /rikaɾðo/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Is Ricardo a male or female name?
- Ricardo is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- How common is the name Ricardo?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 429,575 people named Ricardo in 2022, about 1 in 493 residents.
- How common is Ricardo compared with other names?
- In the United States, Ricardo is the 9th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ricardo?
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/ricardoThe 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, “Ricardo” — the 9th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.