Bir

loc · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Bir is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Punjabi ਬੀਰ (bīr).

rarermore common
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 1.4Kas Beer(inferred from the name graph)
  • TRTürkiye≈1 in 14Kas Bor
  • INIndia1 in 32Kas Bora

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 Bir 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.

India (measured from records)

41,715 named Bora

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
360 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)

South Africa, est., as Beer

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

BeerLatin(measured from records)
বরBengali(measured from records)
เบอะThai(measured from records)
బీరTelugu(measured from records)

4 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Beer in US United States, ZA South Africa, CH Switzerland and 1 more, Bari in IN India and Bor in TR Türkiye.

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)

Borrowed from Punjabi ਬੀਰ (bīr).

Sources 3

  • Wiktionary
  • Dictionar Onomastic Rominesc
  • Deshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Bir 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.

Where Bir is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India—41,715as Bora1 in 32K42KBari140
ZA South Africa#213≈40,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Beer106
IT Italy—≈10,000 est.≈1 in 6K9Beer20
US United States—8,252as Bear1 in 40K9KBeer360
TR Türkiye—≈5,900 est.≈1 in 14K—Bor52
CH Switzerland—2,572as Bär1 in 3.3K2.6KBeer47
NO Norway—1,280as Bore1 in 4.3K1.3K—10
SK Slovakia—723as Bari1 in 7.5K723—8

41,715 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls, counting the spelling bora. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Bir is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Bīr

  • Turkmen name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Turkmenistan

    Also written Bīr, Bįr, Bïr

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Bîr

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Bįŕ, Biř

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Bîr

  • Hebrew surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Israel, United States, Romania, India

    Also written ביר, Beer, בייר, Be'Er, ביאר

39 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Bir is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Luxembourgish, superseded spelling of Bier (“pear”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Scottish Gaelic, onomatopoeic alarm noise of a gannet when attacked at night

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In goh, second-person singular imperative of bëran

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • ISO 639-3 language code for Bisorio.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In sga, stake, spit, point; spear, spike

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In gag, the indefinite article, a, an

    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)

1700180019002000Wilhelm Beer, b. 1797August Beer, b. 1825George Louis Beer, b. 1872Edith Hahn Beer, b. 1914Jacqueline Beer, b. 1932Erich Beer, b. 1946Nicola Beer, b. 1970Eli Beer, b. 1973Paula Beer, b. 1995Madison Beer, b. 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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 36 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Bir
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—5.1K#1,543
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—2K#434
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020599#39,592
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010558#39,419
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000517#39,946
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020339#22,829
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202094#22,829
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)197234—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)196231—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)199427—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)198927—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)199226—

Reference works 4

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 Bir mean, and where does it come from?
Borrowed from Punjabi ਬੀਰ (bīr). Recorded by Wiktionary and Dictionar Onomastic Rominesc and 1 other source.
In which country does Bir have the most bearers?
In India, the national register counted about 42 thousand people named Bora, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Bir?
In India, the national register counted 41,715 people named Bora, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
How common is Bir compared with other names?
In South Africa, Bir is the 213th most common surname of 285,788 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bir

The 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, “Bir” — the 213th most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Bir parses inside a full name →