Alban
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: Latin Albanus, meaning 'from Alba/white'; used as a Christian name
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/albɑ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Alban is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 3.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- ALAlbania1 in 905
- XKKosovo≈1 in 1.2K
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 Alban 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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 333 (measured from records)
- 1 in 905 (inferred from the name graph)
≈17,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Albania
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)
from the male personal name Alban, from Latin Albanus, literally ‘person from Alba’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Alban is read(measured from records)
Alban 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.
- French67%
Latin Albanus, meaning 'from Alba/white'; used as a Christian name.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
- English10%
from the male personal name Alban, from Latin Albanus, literally ‘person from Alba’
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
from Latin Albanus ‘of Alba’ (name of the first British martyr); first attested Albanus filius Willelmi 1212 (Cur, Y)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Latin origin; means “white” or “light of dawn.” Used for men.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
Albanus filius Willelmi 1212 Cur (Y); Walter Alban 1250 Fees (Bk); Adam Albon 1275 SRWo; Hugh Alybon 1297 Coram (Db); William Albon, Albone 1376 LLB G; William Albanes 1379 PTY; William Alybone 1397 FrY. Latin Albanus ‘of Alba’, the name of the first British martyr. St. Albans is recorded as Seynt Albones in 1421 (PN Herts 87).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
- Spanish7.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Alban in Spanish.
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)
Alban 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | #520 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | 29K | Alban | 333 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #596 | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Alban | 3 |
| AL Albania | — | 3,398 | 1 in 905 | 3.4K | — | 1 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 30K | listed | Alban | 33 |
| XK Kosovo | #275 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 6K | Alban | 5 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | 85 | Alban | 43 |
| MK North Macedonia | — | 783as Албан | 1 in 2.7K | 783 | — | 6 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts); State Statistical Office — living population names; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Alban is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Irish, Short form of Latin Albanus, from albus ‘white’; linked with Saint Alban, first English martyr.
as a nameIrish 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)
- Alban Bergb. 1885ATAustrian composer (1885–1935)
- Alain-Fournierb. 1886FRnot in their usual nameFrench writer
- Dr. Albanb. 1957NGNigerian-Swedish dentist, musician
- Alban Bushib. 1973ALAlbanian footballer
- Alban Ukajb. 1980XKBosnian actor
- Alban Lenoirb. 1980FRFrench actor
- Alban Ivanovb. 1984FRFrench actor and comedian
- Alban Préaubertb. 1985FRFrench figure skater
- Alban Hoxhab. 1987ALAlbanian professional footballer
- Alban Lafontb. 1999BFFrench-Ivorian footballer (born 1999)
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 95 sources across 50 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 29K | #167 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 6K | #34 |
| AL Albania | INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts) | — | 3.4K | #78 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | 2025 | 4 | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 2 | #34 |
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
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Alban come from?
- from the male personal name Alban, from Latin Albanus, literally ‘person from Alba’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What does the name Alban mean?
- In French, Latin Albanus, meaning 'from Alba/white'; used as a Christian name.
- Is Alban a male or female name?
- Alban 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 do you pronounce Alban?
- A machine transcription gives /albɑ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Alban have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Alban in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled alban.
- Where is Alban most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Alban is densest in Albania — about 1 in 905 people — even though France holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Alban?
- In the etymology graph, Albanus is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Alban?
- In Albania, the national register counted 3,398 people named Alban, about 1 in 905 residents.
- How common is Alban compared with other names?
- In France, Alban is the 520th most common given name of 754,146 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Alban?
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/albanThe 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, “Alban” — the 520th most common given name in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.