Byrne
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Byrne is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 18th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Irish Gaelic O Broin, descendant of Bran, a personal name based on bran ‘raven’.
- IEIreland≈1 in 181as Brian(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 253as Brian
- CACanada≈1 in 265as Brian
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 Byrne 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #57 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 681 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 181 (inferred from the name graph)
1,011,020 named Brian, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est., as Brian
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Brian in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada and 3 more, Bryan in PH Philippines and Brayan in EC Ecuador.
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)
From Irish Gaelic O Broin, descendant of Bran, a personal name based on bran ‘raven’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Byrne 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 | #18 | 1,011,020as Brian | 1 in 329 | 1M | Brian | 681 |
| GB United Kingdom | #30 | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 253 | 4 | Brian | 383 |
| CA Canada | #18 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 265 | 11 | Brian | 378 |
| PH Philippines | #54 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 1K | — | Bryan | 184 |
| EG Egypt | #382 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 993 | — | Brian | 36 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 65,634as Bryan | 1 in 258 | 66K | Brayan | 79 |
| IE Ireland | #14 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 181 | — | Brian | 224 |
| NZ New Zealand | #19 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 271 | — | Brian | 176 |
1,011,020 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; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; INEC — civil registry names. 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)
Byrne 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 English, O Broin 'raven'; sept of Leinster, later Wicklow (Crioch Bhranach/O’Byrne’s Country); Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne, chief of his name
as a nameIrish family names
In English, Irish Ó Birn ‘descendant of Biorn’ or Ó Broin ‘descendant of Bran’ (‘raven’)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
ant of Bran’, a personal name probably from bran raven. Bran was the name of a son of the King of Leinster, who died at Cologne in 1052. Vars.: O’Byrne, (0’)Be(i)rne, Byrnes, Burns.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
oiBran, a personal name probably from bran raven. Bran was the name of a son of the King of Leinster, who died at Cologne in 1052. Vars.: O’Byrne, (0’)Be(i)rne, Byrnes, Burns.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, David, US musician, composer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Michael Byrneb. 1939GBBritish actor
- Gabriel Byrneb. 1950IEIrish actor
- John Byrneb. 1950USauthor and artist of comic books
- Rhonda Byrneb. 1951AUAustralian writer and producer
- David Byrneb. 1952USScottish-American musician (born 1952)
- Alexandra Byrneb. 1962GBBritish costume designer
- P.J. Byrneb. 1974USAmerican actor
- Nicky Byrneb. 1978IEIrish singer-songwriter, radio and TV presenter, dancer, and footballer
- Rose Byrneb. 1979AUAustralian actress
- Scarlett Byrneb. 1990GBBritish actress
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 40 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 30K | #1,198 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 29K | #1,106 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 29K | #1,198 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 158 | #39,783 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 31 | #39,783 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1966 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1931 | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1914 | 7 | — |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | — | 7 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1964 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1956 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1947 | 6 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Byrne mean, and where does it come from?
- From Irish Gaelic O Broin, descendant of Bran, a personal name based on bran ‘raven’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Byrne have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.0 million people named Brian, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Byrne?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,011,020 people named Brian in 2020, about 1 in 329 residents.
- How common is Byrne compared with other names?
- In the United States, Byrne is the 18th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Byrne?
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/byrneThe 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, “Byrne” — the 18th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.