Sam
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ,2 Short form of Samuel (or less frequently of Samson), and of Samantha
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sæm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sam is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the United Arab Emirates it is the 93rd most common given name.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 444(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 603
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 802
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 Sam 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #699 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 636 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 444 (inferred from the name graph)
≈800,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, 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)
,2 Short form of Samuel (or less frequently of Samson), and of Samantha.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sam 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈800,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Sam | 93 |
| US United States | #331 | 121,443 | 1 in 2.7K | 112K | Sam | 636 |
| GB United Kingdom | #166 | ≈82,000 est. | ≈1 in 802 | 21 | Sam | 379 |
| NG Nigeria | #844 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Sam | 101 |
| AU Australia | #116 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 603 | 103 | Sam | 337 |
| HK Hong Kong | #109 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 444 | — | Sam | 92 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #93 | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Sam | 128 |
| NZ New Zealand | #128 | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 847 | — | Sam | 194 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 2,528as Samo | 1 in 832 | 2.5K | — | 13 |
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); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); SURS — resident population given 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Sam is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, Sam är en engelsk smekform till → Samuel. Det har varit ett populärt namn de senaste årtiondena. En fiktiv namnbärare som kan ha bidragit till namnets spridning är Sam i J.R.R. Tolkiens trilogi Härskarringen (1954–55), filmatiserad 2001–2003. Som kvinnonamn kan det vara en smekform till → Samantha. I den rikssvenska alma nackan 1 september och i den finlandssvenska 20 augusti.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In English, Samanala [Adam's Peak]
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, sacred mtn., Sri Lanka
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, surface-to-air missile
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, city, Afghanistan
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Sam Houstonb. 1793USAmerican statesman, politician, and soldier (1793-1863)
- Sam Wanamakerb. 1919USAmerican actor (1919–1993)
- Sam Shepardb. 1943USAmerican playwright and actor (1943–2017)
- Sam Hindsb. 1943GY5th Prime Minister of Guyana
- Sam Elliottb. 1944USAmerican actor (born 1944)
- Sam Taylor-Johnsonb. 1967GBBritish film director (born 1967)
- Sam Rockwellb. 1968USAmerican actor
- Sam Rileyb. 1980GBEnglish actor
- Sam Altmanb. 1985USAmerican venture capitalist
- Sam Ryderb. 1989GBEnglish singer, songwriter and social media personality (born 1989)
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 141 sources across 73 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 112K | #463 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 9.9K | #463 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 428 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2010 | 103 | #97 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 5 | #3,732 |
Reference works 9
- 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
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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
- Is Sam a male or female name?
- Sam 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.
- What are other forms of the name Sam?
- In the etymology graph, Sammy, Sammie and Samu are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Samuel and Samantha.
- What does the name Sam mean, and where does it come from?
- ,2 Short form of Samuel (or less frequently of Samson), and of Samantha. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- In which country does Sam have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 805 thousand people named Sam in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sam.
- How common is the name Sam?
- In the United States, the national register counted 121,443 people named Sam in 2020, about 1 in 2.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Sam compared with other names?
- In the United Arab Emirates, Sam is the 93rd most common given name of 31,430 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Sam?
- A machine transcription gives /sæm/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Sam?
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/samThe 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, “Sam” — the 93rd most common given name in United Arab Emirates. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.