Colon

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: The punctuation mark ⟨:⟩

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

/kəʊlən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Colon is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Puerto Rico it is the 3rd most common surname.

rarermore common
  • PRPuerto Rico≈1 in 95(inferred from the name graph)
  • CUCuba≈1 in 219
  • DODominican Republic≈1 in 763

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)

67,338 people, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
459 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 95 (inferred from the name graph)

Puerto Rico, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ColonLatin(measured from records)
โคลอนThai(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)

pigeon; various Italian and Sephardic communities

Sources 1

  • Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

How Colon is read(measured from records)

Colon is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.

  • English57%

    The punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.

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

    Christopher Columbus; prov, city,

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    Panama; town, Argentina; town,

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    Cristobal, Spanish name for

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • Spanish28%

    colon (punctuation mark)

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

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)

Colon 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 Colon is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#38667,3381 in 4.9K69KColon459
CU Cuba#3≈50,000 est.≈1 in 219—Colon16
PR Puerto Rico#3≈34,000 est.≈1 in 95—Colon103
DO Dominican Republic#84≈14,000 est.≈1 in 763—Colon56
GB United Kingdom#723≈10,000 est.≈1 in 6.3K—Colon80
JM Jamaica#90≈1,000 est.≈1 in 2.7K—Colon3

67,338 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)

Colon is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Colòn, Cólon, Colón

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, United Kingdom

    Also written Colón

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco

    Languages: Arabic, Amharic

    Also written Colón

  • Polish surname24 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Polish, Russian, Bulgarian

    Also written Kolon, Колон, Colón, Čòlón, Colòn

  • Indonesian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, Philippines, United Kingdom

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Colón

  • Japanese surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain

    Also written Colòn, Colón

  • English given name95 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Chinese

    Also written Colin, קולין, Kalin, Collin, Coleen

49 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)

Colon is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • pigeon; various Italian and Sephardic communities

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

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)

18001850190019502000Jenny Colon, b. 1808Eric Colon, b. 1938Alex Colon, b. 1941Frank Colón, b. 1951Brian Colon, b. 1970Teofilo Colon, Jr., b. 1974Willie Colon, b. 1983Luis Ramos, b. 1985Rosal Colon, b. 1986

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)

FormalDear Colon,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 43 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Colon
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202069K#470
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201067K#497
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200056K#539
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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

How do you pronounce Colon?
A machine transcription gives /kəʊlən/ (IPA) for English.
Where does the name Colon come from?
pigeon; various Italian and Sephardic communities Recorded by Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,….
What does the name Colon mean?
In English, The punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.
In which country does Colon have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 67 thousand people named Colon, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled colon.
How common is the name Colon?
In the United States, the national register counted 67,338 people named Colon in 2010, about 1 in 4.9 thousand residents.
How common is Colon compared with other names?
In the United States, Colon is the 386th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Colon?

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

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, “Colon” — the 386th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Colon parses inside a full name →