Sharif
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Muslim name based on Arabic sharif ‘illustrious’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʃɛɹəf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sharif is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country, where it is the 68th most common surname.
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- PKPakistan≈1 in 2.6K
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 3.4K
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 Sharif 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.
- Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 142 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈150,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Bangladesh, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Shareef in PK Pakistan, SA Saudi Arabia, AE United Arab Emirates, Sarip in PH Philippines, MY Malaysia and Sharifu in TZ Tanzania.
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)
Muslim name based on Arabic sharif ‘illustrious’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sharif is read(measured from records)
Sharif 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.
- English22%
Muslim name based on Arabic sharif ‘illustrious’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
A traditional Arab tribal title for one who serves as the protector of the tribe and all tribal assets.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Omar, Egyptian actor
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Hindi18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sharif in Hindi.
- Bangla8.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sharif in Bangla.
- Urdu7.3%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sharif in Urdu.
- Arabic7.0%
noble, honourable, highborn, eminent
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim 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)
Sharif 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BD Bangladesh | #68 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | listed | Sharif | 122 |
| PK Pakistan | #51 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | listed | Shareef | 103 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | 1 | Sharifu | 21 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Sharif | 17 |
| PH Philippines | #689 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Sarip | 40 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | #367 | ≈9,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | listed | Shareef | 76 |
| MY Malaysia | #533 | ≈7,800 est. | ≈1 in 4.2K | — | Sarip | 36 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #212 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Shareef | 74 |
| IN India | #932 | 2,073 | 1 in 640K | 2.1K | Sharif | 135 |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results. 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)
Sharif 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 Somali, Somali: honest; related Swahili noble, honorable
as a nameAfrican Names
‘Eminent’, ‘honourable’. Feminine form: Sharifa. Shatha ° ‘Fragrance’, ‘perfume’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first 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)
- Omar Sharifb. 1932EGEgyptian actor (1932–2015)
- Nawaz Sharifb. 1949PKformer prime minister of Pakistan
- Shahbaz Sharifb. 1951PKPrime Minister of Pakistan (2022–2023; 2024–present)
- Abu Ishaq al-Houwenyb. 1956EGnot in their usual nameIslamic scholar (1956–2025)
- Maimunah Mohd Sharifb. 1961MYMalaysian politician and urban planner
- Maryam Nawazb. 1973PKnot in their usual namePakistani politician
- Sharifb. 1979ILIsraeli Druze singer
- Omar Sharif, Jr.b. 1983EGEgyptian-Canadian actor
- Muhammad Waqasb. 1985PKnot in their usual namePakistani field hockey player
- Tahirah SharifGBBritish actress
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 75 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2015 | 6 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2017 | 3 | — |
| TZ Tanzania | INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results | 2020 | 1 | #29 |
Reference works 5
- 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)
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- 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 Sharif mean, and where does it come from?
- Muslim name based on Arabic sharif ‘illustrious’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Sharif?
- A machine transcription gives /ʃɛɹəf/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Sharif?
- In the etymology graph, Shareef is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Sharif have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 154 thousand people named Sharif in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sharif.
- How common is the name Sharif?
- In India, the national register counted 2,073 people named Sharif, about 1 in 640 thousand residents.
- How common is Sharif compared with other names?
- In Bangladesh, Sharif is the 68th most common surname of 12,312 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sharif?
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/sharifThe 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, “Sharif” — the 68th most common surname in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.