Arif
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Çok anlayışlı ve sezgili kimse
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/aɾif/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Arif is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country, where it is the 31st most common given name.
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 479(inferred from the name graph)
- PKPakistan≈1 in 1.7K
- USUnited States1 in 139K
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.
- Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 205 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 479 (inferred from the name graph)
≈340,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Bangladesh, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Çok anlayışlı ve sezgili kimse.
Sources 1
- TDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Arif 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 | #31 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 479 | listed | Arif | 127 |
| PK Pakistan | #163 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | listed | Arif | 131 |
| TR Türkiye | — | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 781 | — | Arif | 24 |
| AF Afghanistan | — | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Arif | 13 |
| AZ Azerbaijan | — | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 654 | 441 | — | 10 |
| US United States | — | 2,389 | 1 in 139K | 2.6K | Arif | 205 |
| XK Kosovo | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 826 | 2.7K | — | 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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics. 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)
Arif 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, männl. Vom. türkischer Herkunft (türk. arif »weise« aus gleichbedeutend arab. ‘a rif).
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
learned; knowledgeable.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
Chief, one who
as a nameDictionary of Islamic Names
knowledgeable
as a nameWhats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names
In crh, letter (of the alphabet), character (written or printed symbol or letter)
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)
- Arif Mardinb. 1932TRTurkish-American record producer (1932–2006)
- Arif Malikovb. 1933AZSoviet and Azerbaijani composer (1933-2019)
- Aref Arefkiab. 1940IRnot in their usual nameIranian singer and former actor
- Arif Alvib. 1949PK13th President of Pakistan from 2018 to 2024
- Arif Mohammad Khanb. 1951INFormer governor of Bihar
- Arif Aliyevb. 1960RURussian writer
- Arif Erdemb. 1972TRTurkish association football player (born 1972)
- Arif S. Kinchenb. 1973USAmerican actor
- Onur Saylakb. 1977TRnot in their usual nameTurkish actor and director (born 1977)
- Arif Aiman Hanapib. 2002MYMalaysian 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)
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 82 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 2.7K | #240 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.4K | #6,652 |
| AZ Azerbaijan | Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics | — | 441 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 21 | #6,652 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 10 | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 3 | #240 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | 2025 | 2 | — |
Reference works 9
- 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)
- Тахиров, Речник на турските лични имена в България
- 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
- How do you pronounce Arif?
- A machine transcription gives /aɾif/ (IPA) for Turkish.
- What does the name Arif mean?
- Recorded meaning: Çok anlayışlı ve sezgili kimse.
- Is Arif a male or female name?
- Arif 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.
- What are other forms of the name Arif?
- In the etymology graph, Aref is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Arif have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 339 thousand people named Arif in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled arif.
- How common is the name Arif?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,389 people named Arif in 2020, about 1 in 139 thousand residents.
- How common is Arif compared with other names?
- In Bangladesh, Arif is the 31st most common given name of 29,323 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Arif?
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/arifThe 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, “Arif” — the 31st most common given name in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.