Yǎn
given name · Latin script
Yǎn is a given name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Brazil. Recorded meaning: Along with ane and yen, a Northumbrian form of one, from the Old English ān. An example is "yan, twee, tree, fower" for "one, two, three, four".
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)
Along with ane and yen, a Northumbrian form of one, from the Old English ān. An example is "yan, twee, tree, fower" for "one, two, three, four".
Sources 9
- A concise dictionary of first names
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
- Wiktionary
- Chinese Surnames Encyclopedia (Section 2)
- YorùbáName Dictionary
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yǎn counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | — | 62K | — |
| US United States | — | 17K | — |
| FR France | — | 5.1K | — |
| AR Argentina | — | 3.1K | — |
| PL Poland | — | 2.5K | — |
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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Cui Yanb. 163CNOfficial serving warlord Cao Cao (165 - 216)
- Cai Wenjib. 177CNnot in their usual name3rd century Chinese poet and musician
- Yan Yanb. 506disciple of Confucius
- Gao Yanb. 558Imperial prince of the Chinese Northern Qi dynasty
- Li Tanb. 715not in their usual nameson of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang
- Chu Jenb. 1361CNnot in their usual nameMing dynasty person CBDB = 34479
- Nguyễn Nghiễmb. 1708VNnot in their usual name(1708-1776)
- Cao YanPrince of Guangping and son of Cao Pi (died 223)
- Liu YanCNShu Han general and official (died 234)
- Xie YanThe second son of Xie An and a general of the Eastern Jin dynasty
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)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Yǎn mean, and where does it come from?
- Along with ane and yen, a Northumbrian form of one, from the Old English ān. An example is "yan, twee, tree, fower" for "one, two, three, four". Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names and DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen and 7 other sources.
- Is Yǎn a male or female name?
- Yǎn 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.
- In which country does Yǎn have the most bearers?
- Yǎn is most frequently recorded in Brazil.
What do you want to know about Yǎn?
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/y%C7%8EnThe 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, “Yǎn”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.