Lanka
loc · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Lanka is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country. Recorded meaning: probably a shortened form of Lithuanian Lankauskas.
- INIndia1 in 162K(measured from records)
- LVLatvia≈1 in 20K
- SESweden1 in 249K
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 Lanka 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.
- India (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 120 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 20K (inferred from the name graph)
8,188 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Latvia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Lanke in IN India, US United States.
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)
probably a shortened form of Lithuanian Lankauskas.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lanka 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | 8,188 | 1 in 162K | 8.2K | Lanke | 110 |
| FI Finland | 1,299as Lonka | 1 in 4.3K | 1.3K | — | — |
| ID Indonesia | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 485K | — | Lanka | 10 |
| US United States | 464 | 1 in 717K | 930 | Lanke | 120 |
| PL Poland | 97as Lonka | 1 in 395K | 193 | — | — |
| LV Latvia | ≈95 est. | ≈1 in 20K | 3 | — | 1 |
| SE Sweden | 41 | 1 in 249K | 142 | — | 3 |
| NO Norway | 16 | 1 in 342K | 294 | — | 1 |
8,188 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls, counting the spelling lanka. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register). 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)
Lanka 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.
Hindu name of unknown meaning.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Finnish, thread (twisted strand of fiber used in sewing, weaving or in the construction of string)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, The island city of Ravana in the ancient Indian epic Ramayana.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In dsb, genitive singular of lank
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Slovak, diminutive of laň
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)
- Jānis Lankab. 1940LVSoviet Latvian athletics competitor
- Zigurds Lankab. 1960LVLatvian chess player (born 1960)
- Stefan Lankab. 1963DEGerman author, HIV/AIDS denialism, promoting conspiracy theories
- K. Nilmini Lanka Geeganageb. 1970LKbadminton player
- Lakini Lanka Geeganageb. 1996LKbadminton player
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 30 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 18K | #68 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 8.2K | #1,107 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 740 | #33,184 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 464 | #45,959 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 313 | #60,230 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 41 | #14,622 |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1994 | 28 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1995 | 26 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1988 | 26 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1972 | 24 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1985 | 23 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 1992 | 22 | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Lietuvių kalbos institutas — Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Lithuanian surname dictionary)
- 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 Lanka mean, and where does it come from?
- probably a shortened form of Lithuanian Lankauskas. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Lanka have the most bearers?
- In India, the national register counted about 8.2 thousand people named Lanka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lanke.
- How common is the name Lanka?
- In India, the national register counted 8,188 people named Lanka, about 1 in 162 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Lanka?
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/lankaThe 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, “Lanka”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.