West
loc · Latin script
Meaning: one who lives in the western part of a settlement, or came from a more westerly place
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
West is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.5K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.7K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 583 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 985 (inferred from the name graph)
195,818 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Cayman Islands, 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)
one who lives in the western part of a settlement, or came from a more westerly place
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
West 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 | 195,818 | 1 in 1.7K | 196K | West | 583 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | — | West | 8 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | West | 54 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | listed | West | 308 |
| EG Egypt | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | West | 26 |
| AU Australia | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | West | 247 |
| GR Greece | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | West | 24 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | West | 134 |
| KY Cayman Islands | ≈63 est. | ≈1 in 985 | — | West | 19 |
195,818 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010. 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)
West 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 German, Toponymic surname from west 'west' or a western place/dwelling name; bearer counts: West 519, Weste(n) 222+159, T(h)orwesten 59+186.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In English, ‘man from the west’ or ‘dweller to the west’ of a certain place; first attested Maurice de West 1152–70 Colch (Ess)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In German, Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling designation meaning 'west'; bearer count 1145.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, from the west; also in many compounds and place names
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In English, kpundo; kpundo- ht, the west, the lower place
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
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)
- Mae Westb. 1893USAmerican actress, singer, screenwriter, and writer (1893–1980)
- Red Westb. 1936USAmerican actor, film stuntman and songwriter (1936-2017)
- Jerry Westb. 1938USAmerican basketball player and executive (1938-2024)
- Billy Westb. 1952USAmerican voice actor
- Samuel Westb. 1966GBBritish actor and director
- Dominic Westb. 1969GBBritish actor
- Ye Westb. 1977USAmerican rapper and record producer
- Shane Westb. 1978USAmerican actor, musician and songwriter
- Kim Kardashianb. 1980USnot in their usual nameAmerican media personality, businesswoman, model and actress (born 1980)
- Madeleine Westb. 1980AUAustralian actress, author and director
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 64 sources across 36 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 196K | #125 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 189K | #127 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 188K | #115 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 West mean, and where does it come from?
- one who lives in the western part of a settlement, or came from a more westerly place Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does West have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 196 thousand people named West, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled west.
- How common is the name West?
- In the United States, the national register counted 195,818 people named West in 2010, about 1 in 1.7 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about West?
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/westThe 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, “West”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.