Hugh
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Old French Hughe or Hue, from Germanic shortened forms beginning with hug 'heart, spirit'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/hjuː/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hugh is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.6K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.6K
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)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 511 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈260,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, 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)
- Old French Hugheor(measured from records)
- Germanicshortened(measured from records)
from Old French Hughe or Hue, from Germanic shortened forms beginning with hug 'heart, spirit'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hugh 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 | — | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Hugh | 38 |
| US United States | #597 | 37,239 | 1 in 8.9K | 236K | Hugh | 511 |
| GB United Kingdom | #307 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | 14 | Hugh | 316 |
| CA Canada | #480 | ≈9,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | 11 | Hugh | 222 |
| AU Australia | #418 | ≈9,100 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | 82 | Hugh | 213 |
| IE Ireland | #183 | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | 54 | Hugh | 134 |
| NZ New Zealand | #262 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | 13 | Hugh | 124 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); 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)
Hugh 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, from OFr Hue, from Germanic Hugo ‘heart, mind’; first attested Hugo 1066 DB (Hu, Suffolk)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In French, English form of Hugues, from Germanic hug, 'mind, spirit'.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In English, Germanic; used in Ireland and Scotland to translate Aodh, and also Hoibeard (Hubert).
as a nameIrish first names
In English, used instead of Hywel; page notes it later became Hughes/Pugh
as a nameWelsh Surnames
From an Old French name, Hugues, Hugo, of Germanic (Frankish) origin, derived from hug ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘spirit’. It was originally a short form of various compound names containing this element. This was borne by the aristocracy of medieval France, adopted by the Normans, and introduced by them to Britain.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first 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)
- Hugh Falconerb. 1808GBScottish scientist (1808–1865)
- Hugh Hefnerb. 1926USAmerican businessman and magazine publisher (1926–2017)
- Willie Nelsonb. 1933USnot in their usual nameAmerican country musician (born 1933)
- Hugh Fraserb. 1945GBEnglish actor and theatre director
- Ritchie Blackmoreb. 1945GBnot in their usual nameBritish guitarist
- Hugh David Politzerb. 1949USAmerican physicist
- Hugh Laurieb. 1959GBEnglish actor, comedian, director, musician and writer
- Hugh Grantb. 1960GBBritish actor
- Hugh Bonnevilleb. 1963GBBritish actor (born 1963)
- Marilyn Mansonb. 1969USnot in their usual nameAmerican musician (born 1969)
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 68 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 37K | #1,110 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 360 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2022 | 82 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 80 | #1,110 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 67 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2024 | 64 | #97 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2024 | 64 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 54 | #117 |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2018 | 25 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 16 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 14 | #159 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 13 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- Is Hugh a male or female name?
- Hugh 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.
- What are other forms of the name Hugh?
- In the etymology graph, Hugo, Hugues and Ugo are forms of the same name in other languages; Hughie is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Hugh mean, and where does it come from?
- from Old French Hughe or Hue, from Germanic shortened forms beginning with hug 'heart, spirit'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Hugh?
- In the United States, the national register counted 37,239 people named Hugh in 2020, about 1 in 8.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Hugh compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Hugh is the 183rd most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Hugh?
- A machine transcription gives /hjuː/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Hugh have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 264 thousand people named Hugh in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hugh.
What do you want to know about Hugh?
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/hughThe 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, “Hugh” — the 183rd most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.