Monica
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Monica is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country, where it is the 27th most common given name. Recorded meaning: Latin/possibly Berber: 'counselor'; North African saint and mother of Saint Augustine.
- ARArgentina≈1 in 214(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 1.1K
- USUnited States1 in 1.3K
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 Monica 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.
- Poland (measured from records)
- #141 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 593 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 214 (inferred from the name graph)
376,774 named Monika, 2026
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Argentina, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Monika in DE Germany, PL Poland, CZ Czechia and 1 more and Monique in LT Lithuania.
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)
Latin/possibly Berber: 'counselor'; North African saint and mother of Saint Augustine.
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Monica 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | #27 | 376,774as Monika | 1 in 102 | 377K | Monika | 239 |
| DE Germany | #42 | ≈270,000 est. | ≈1 in 301 | — | Monika | 271 |
| US United States | #174 | 264,966 | 1 in 1.3K | 265K | Monica | 593 |
| AR Argentina | #72 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 214 | 152 | Monica | 149 |
| BR Brazil | #151 | 190,977 | 1 in 1.1K | 204K | Monica | 218 |
| CZ Czechia | #41 | 127,714as Monika | 1 in 84 | 128K | Monika | 162 |
| HU Hungary | #61 | 61,103as Mónika | 1 in 160 | 61K | Monika | 157 |
| LT Lithuania | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 221 | 19K | Monique | 6 |
376,774 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20), 2026. 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; RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); MVČR — living population register 2017; Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025); Registrų centras — top-50 given 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)
Monica 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 French, From Lat. Monica; saint Monica, mother of Augustine.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In Italian, Spanish Monica; from the female personal name Monica, the name of the mother of St. Augustine. She was a Carthaginian, so the name may well be of Phoenician origin. However, in the early Middle Ages, it was taken to be a derivative of Latin monere ‘to warn or advise’, and was associated with the spiritual guidance that she gave to her famous son.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Of uncertain ultimate origin. This was the name of the mother of St Augustine, as transmitted to us by her famous son. She was a citizen of Carthage, so her
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Italian, var. regional de Monaca.
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Italian, from a feminine form of Monico.
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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)
- Monicab. 332DZChristian saint; mother of St. Augustine
- Monica Vittib. 1931ITItalian actress (1931–2022)
- Monica Guerritoreb. 1958ITItalian actress, director and playwright
- Monica Belluccib. 1964ITItalian actress and model (born 1964)
- Monica Dolanb. 1969GBBritish actress
- Monica Lewinskyb. 1973USAmerican activist and writer (born 1973)
- Monicab. 1980USAmerican singer and rapper (born 1980)
- Agnes Monicab. 1986IDIndonesian singer and actress
- Monica Niculescub. 1987RORomanian tennis player
- Monica Barbarob. 1990USAmerican 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 139 sources across 72 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 265K | #203 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 204K | #256 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 191K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 190K | #172 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 948 | #505 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 948 | #505 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 798 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 664 | #172 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 371 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 355 | #203 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 158 | #1,059 |
| LT Lithuania | VLKK — Lietuvos Respublikos piliečių vardų sąvadas (recommended names) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
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 Monica mean, and where does it come from?
- Latin/possibly Berber: 'counselor'; North African saint and mother of Saint Augustine. Recorded by African Names.
- Is Monica a male or female name?
- Monica is a female 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 Monica?
- In the etymology graph, Monique, Monika and Yami are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Monica?
- In the United States, the national register counted 264,966 people named Monica in 2020, about 1 in 1.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Monica compared with other names?
- In Poland, Monica is the 27th most common given name of 25,969 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Monica have the most bearers?
- In Poland, the national register counted about 377 thousand people named Monika, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Monica?
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/monicaThe 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, “Monica” — the 27th most common given name in Poland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.