Bo

given name · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Bo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Benin it is the 64th most common given name. In English, recorded as An exclamation used to startle or frighten.

rarermore common
  • SESweden1 in 121(measured from records)
  • CNChina≈1 in 1.5K
  • USUnited States1 in 18K

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)

≈960,000 people, est.

Sources
420 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 121 (inferred from the name graph)

Sweden

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

live; dwell; reside; to have permanent residence

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Bo is read(measured from records)

Bo is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • English40%

    An exclamation used to startle or frighten.

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

  • Chinese12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Bo in Chinese.

  • Danish11%

    estate (the property of a deceased person)

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

  • Swedish7.7%

    live; dwell; reside; to have permanent residence

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

    Bo är ett östnordiskt namn, som innehåller fornsvenskt boe ’boende, inbyggare’. Ändelsen -e har fallit tidigt; redan på 1280-talet förekommer formen Bo. Den välbekanta smekformen → Bosse har under senare tid börjat användas även som officiellt förnamn. I den rikssvenska almanackan 5 juni och i den finlandssvenska 18 augusti.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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)

Bo 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 Bo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈960,000 est.≈1 in 1.5K—Bo63
SE Sweden#58684,0091 in 12184KBo88
US United States—18,8331 in 18K16KBo420
BJ Benin#64≈12,000 est.≈1 in 1K—Bo7
DK Denmark—10,7511 in 54611K—4
FI Finland—1,5971 in 3.5K3.2KBo14

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; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)

Bo is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Danish given name32 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Sweden, United States, Norway

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written B-O, Bö, Bò, Bó, Bồ

  • Chinese given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, China, United Kingdom, Taiwan

    Also written Bố, Bó, B'O, Bồ, Bò

  • Vietnamese given name9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, United States, United Kingdom, Hong Kong

    Languages: Vietnamese, Khmer

    Also written Bố, Bò, Bỏ, Bộ, Bô

  • Finnish given name15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Finland, United States, Estonia

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Bó, Bồ, Bò, Bố, Bö

  • a separate name9 spellings in the group

    Also written Bô, Bó, Bö, Bō, Bộ

  • Arabic given name17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Egypt, United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia

    Also written Bö, B'O, Bő, Bõ, Bô

  • Dutch given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Netherlands, Belgium, United States, Sweden

    Also written Bö, Bó, Bõ, Bố, Bọ

  • Korean given name13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Korea, Canada, United Kingdom

    Also written 보, Bô, Bŏ, Bò, Bỏ

78 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)

Bo is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • ‘Waves’. See also Bal.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In Italian, Variante di Bove

    as a nameDizionario dei cognomi italiani

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)

19201940196019802000Bo Goldman, b. 1932Bo Svenson, b. 1941Bo Larsson, b. 1944Bo Harwood, b. 1946Bo Lundgren, b. 1947Bo Welch, b. 1951Kirk Baily, b. 1963Johan Renck, b. 1966Bo Bice, b. 1975Robin Söderling, b. 1984
  • Bo Goldmanb. 1932USAmerican screenwriter (1932–2023)
  • Bo Svensonb. 1941SESwedish-American actor
  • Bo Larssonb. 1944SESwedish footballer (1944–2023)
  • Bo Harwoodb. 1946USAmerican composer
  • Bo Lundgrenb. 1947SESwedish politician
  • Bo Welchb. 1951USAmerican production designer, art director, film and television director and actor
  • Kirk Bailyb. 1963USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1963–2022)
  • Johan Renckb. 1966SEnot in their usual nameSwedish director and musician
  • Bo Biceb. 1975USAmerican singer and musician
  • Robin Söderlingb. 1984SEnot in their usual nameSwedish tennis player

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 80 sources across 41 countries.

Official registers attesting Bo
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—84K#34
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202038K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202016K#1,662
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—11K#67
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—3.2K#412
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20202.8K#1,662
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—1.6K—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025698—
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—66#4,051
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202530—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—28#3,896
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—15—

Reference works 8

  • 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)
  • Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
  • Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary

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

Is Bo a male or female name?
Bo is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
Where does the name Bo come from?
live; dwell; reside; to have permanent residence Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What does the name Bo mean?
In English, An exclamation used to startle or frighten.
How common is the name Bo?
In Sweden, the national register counted 84,009 people named Bo, about 1 in 121 residents.
How common is Bo compared with other names?
In Benin, Bo is the 64th most common given name of 2,017 given names recorded there.
In which country does Bo have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 960 thousand people named Bo in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bo.
Where is Bo most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Bo is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 121 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.

What do you want to know about Bo?

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

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Bo” — the 64th most common given name in Benin. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Bo parses inside a full name →