Bruce
given name · Latin script
Meaning: perhaps ‘person from Brix’, or alternatively ‘person from Briouze or Le Brus’, all places in northern France
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɹuːs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bruce is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In New Zealand it is the 65th most common given name.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 470(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 666
- AUAustralia≈1 in 719
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #339 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 627 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 470 (inferred from the name graph)
267,817 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, 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)
perhaps ‘person from Brix’, or alternatively ‘person from Briouze or Le Brus’, all places in northern France.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bruce 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #142 | 267,817 | 1 in 1.2K | 267K | Bruce | 627 |
| GB United Kingdom | #194 | ≈70,000 est. | ≈1 in 940 | — | Bruce | 290 |
| CA Canada | #100 | ≈57,000 est. | ≈1 in 666 | 7 | Bruce | 330 |
| EG Egypt | #804 | ≈44,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Bruce | 22 |
| IT Italy | #310 | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Bruce | 79 |
| AU Australia | #129 | ≈35,000 est. | ≈1 in 719 | 80 | Bruce | 294 |
| NZ New Zealand | #65 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 470 | 15 | Bruce | 174 |
| SG Singapore | #114 | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Bruce | 87 |
267,817 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Bruce 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 Irish, Norman name meaning someone from Brieuse; associated with Robert the Bruce.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Norman surname from Brix/Brus in Normandy; brought to Britain after 1066, with Robert de Brus in Scotland by the early 12th century.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, From the Norman place-name Bruce; surname continued through branches of the Annandale Bruces and possibly separate Norman sources.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, probably from Brix or Le Brus, Normandy; first attested Robert de Bruis 1086 DB (Y)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In French, From a Scottish surname, originally from the place name Brix in Normandy.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Albert Bruce Sabinb. 1906USJewish-Polish-American physician and epidemiologist who developed oral polio vaccines (1906-1993)
- Bruce McLarenb. 1937NZNew Zealand racecar driver, designer and team owner (1937-1970)
- Bruce Leeb. 1940USHong Kong–American martial artist and actor (1940–1973)
- Dick Cheneyb. 1941USnot in their usual nameVice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 (1941–2025)
- Bruce Springsteenb. 1949USAmerican rock singer (born 1949)
- Caitlyn Jennerb. 1949USnot in their usual nameAmerican media personality and retired decathlete
- Bruce Sterlingb. 1954USAmerican author, speaker and futurist (born 1954)
- Bruce Raunerb. 1957USGovernor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019
- Bruce Dickinsonb. 1958GBEnglish heavy metal singer (born 1958)
- Evilb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican rapper, record producer and actor
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 111 sources across 55 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 267K | #201 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 558 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 346 | #201 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1972 | 80 | #95 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 67 | — |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1977 | 37 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2016 | 15 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2024 | 7 | #607 |
Reference works 7
- 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)
- 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
- 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 Bruce mean, and where does it come from?
- perhaps ‘person from Brix’, or alternatively ‘person from Briouze or Le Brus’, all places in northern France. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Bruce a male or female name?
- Bruce 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.
- In which country does Bruce have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 268 thousand people named Bruce, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bruce.
- How do you pronounce Bruce?
- A machine transcription gives /bɹuːs/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Bruce?
- In the United States, the national register counted 267,817 people named Bruce in 2020, about 1 in 1.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Bruce compared with other names?
- In the United States, Bruce is the 142nd most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bruce?
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/bruceThe 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, “Bruce” — the 142nd most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.