Boo
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A loud exclamation intended to scare someone
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Boo is a surname 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.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 11K(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 617K
- SESweden1 in 121as Bo
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 Boo 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 420 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
≈960,000 named Bo, est.
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Bo in US United States, SE Sweden, NL Netherlands and 3 more.
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)
A loud exclamation intended to scare someone. Usually used when one has been hidden from the target, and then appears unexpectedly.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Boo 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 | — | ≈960,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Bo | 63 |
| SE Sweden | #586 | 84,009as Bo | 1 in 121 | 84K | Bo | 88 |
| US United States | — | 18,833as Bo | 1 in 18K | 16K | Bo | 420 |
| BJ Benin | #64 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Bo | 7 |
| DK Denmark | — | 10,751as Bo | 1 in 546 | 11K | — | 4 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Boo | 62 |
| FI Finland | — | 1,597as Bo | 1 in 3.5K | 3.2K | Bo | 14 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 28 | 1 in 617K | 5.8K | Bo | 62 |
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); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017); 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Boo 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.
unexplained.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
In dag, What! Used to comment on something that amazes, or in times of excitement
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
In Swedish, a community in Nacka, Stockholm, central Sweden
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, to cry aloud, bellow, roar; bray
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Filipino, obsolete spelling of buo
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)
- Sigrid Boob. 1898NONorwegian writer (1898–1953)
- Xosé Bar Boob. 1922ESSpanish architect and professor
- Ben Boob. 1925USAmerican politician
- Luis Barboob. 1927ESnot in their usual nameSpanish actor (1927-2001)
- Katherine Boob. 1964USAmerican journalist
- Boo Suk-jongb. 1964KRSouth Korean admiral
- Boo Ji-youngb. 1971KRSouth Korean director and scriptwriter
- Boo Seong-cheolb. 1972KRSouth Korean film director
- Bu Yong-chanb. 1989KRnot in their usual nameSouth Korean volleyball player (1989-)
- Boo Seung-kwanb. 1998KRSouth Korean singer
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 29 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 712 | #34,306 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 588 | #2,485 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 518 | #12,965 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 508 | #42,640 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 425 | #12,965 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 388 | #50,572 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 296 | #3,009 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2015 | 183 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2014 | 183 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2013 | 182 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2011 | 181 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 1999 | 181 | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Boo mean?
- Recorded meaning: A loud exclamation intended to scare someone.
- Where does the name Boo come from?
- A loud exclamation intended to scare someone. Usually used when one has been hidden from the target, and then appears unexpectedly. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Boo have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 960 thousand people named Bo in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Boo?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 28 people named Boo, about 1 in 617 thousand residents.
- How common is Boo compared with other names?
- In Benin, Boo is the 64th most common given name of 2,017 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Boo?
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/booThe 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, “Boo” — the 64th most common given name in Benin. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.