Ambrose
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From the male personal name Ambrose, from Latin Ambrosius, Greek ambrosios ‘immortal’
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/æmbɹoʊz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ambrose is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 11K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 13K
- USUnited States1 in 19K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 431 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈56,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Grenada
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From the male personal name Ambrose, from Latin Ambrosius, Greek ambrosios ‘immortal’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ambrose 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 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Ambrose | 15 |
| UG Uganda | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Ambrose | 26 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Ambrose | 75 |
| US United States | 17,178 | 1 in 19K | 17K | Ambrose | 431 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 13K | listed | Ambrose | 192 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | 12 | — | 3 |
| GY Guyana | 300 | 1 in 2.5K | 300 | — | 5 |
| GD Grenada | 84 | 1 in 1.3K | 84 | — | 1 |
| DM Dominica | 51 | 1 in 1.5K | 51 | — | 2 |
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; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025; Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025; PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022). 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)
Ambrose 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 English, from Lat Ambrosius / Fr Ambroise, from Gk ἀμβρόσιος ‘divine, immortal’; first attested Ambrosius 1168–75 Holme (Nf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Greek, ‘immortal’; name of St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and used in Ireland to anglicise Anmchadh.
as a nameIrish first names
English form of the Late Latin name Ambrosius, from post-classical Greek Ambrosios ‘immortal’. This was borne by various early saints, most notably a 4th-century bishop of Milan. The name has never been common in England, but has enjoyed considerably greater popularity in Roman Catholic Ireland, where the surname Mac Ambrois is Anglicized as McCambridge.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Ambrosius 1168–75 Holme (Nf); Henry Ambreis 1279 RH (O); William Ambroys 1332 SRSx. Lat Ambrosius, Fr Ambroise, from Gk ảµβρóσıoς ‘divine, immortal’.
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A male given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Bert Ambroseb. 1896GBEnglish bandleader (1896–1971)
- Alice Ambroseb. 1906USAmerican logician (1906-2001)
- Stephen E. Ambroseb. 1936USAmerican historian and writer (1936–2002)
- David Ambroseb. 1945GBEnglish novelist and screenwriter
- Rona Ambroseb. 1969CACanadian politician
- Lauren Ambroseb. 1978USAmerican actress (born 1978)
- Darren Ambroseb. 1984GBEnglish association football player
- Jon Moxleyb. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler and actor
- Efe Ambroseb. 1988NGNigerian footballer (born 1988)
- Thierry Ambroseb. 1997FRGuadeloupean footballer
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 66 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 17K | #2,107 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 17K | #1,992 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 16K | #2,192 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 300 | #342 |
| GD Grenada | Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025 | 2025 | 84 | #142 |
| DM Dominica | Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025 | 2025 | 51 | #176 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022) | — | 3 | #33 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Ambrose mean, and where does it come from?
- From the male personal name Ambrose, from Latin Ambrosius, Greek ambrosios ‘immortal’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Ambrose have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 56 thousand people named Ambrose in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ambrose.
- Where is Ambrose most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Ambrose is densest in Grenada — about 1 in 1.3 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Ambrose?
- In the etymology graph, Ambrosio, Ambroise and Ambrosi are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Ambrose?
- A machine transcription gives /æmbɹoʊz/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Ambrose?
- In the United States, the national register counted 17,178 people named Ambrose in 2010, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Ambrose?
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/ambroseThe 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, “Ambrose”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.