Nis
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A nix; a hobgoblin, especially one that resides in a farm house
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/nis/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nis is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- ARArgentina1 in 82K(measured from records)
- UYUruguay1 in 25K
- BRBrazil1 in 57K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 79 (measured from records)
- 1 in 25K (inferred from the name graph)
3,695 people
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A nix; a hobgoblin, especially one that resides in a farm house.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nis 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.
3,695 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls). 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)
Nis 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, city, Serbia
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, männl. Vom., nordfriesische und däni sche [ms], in Nordschleswig verbreitete Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In ang, contraction of ne is (“is not”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, Kerry form of inis (“to tell”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Scottish Gaelic, clipping of a-nis (“now”)
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)
- Nis Jensen Ravnb. 1828Danish autobiographer (1828-1892)
- Nis Gerthsenb. 1850DKfather of physician Christian Gerthsen
- Nis Nissenb. 1878DEGerman politician
- Nis Petersenb. 1897DKDanish author and poet (1897–1943)
- Nis Schmidtb. 1932DKDanish teacher and artist (born 1932)
- Nis Boesdalb. 1948Danish journalist
- Nis P. Jørgensenb. 1950Danish singer
- Nis Jakobb. 1961DKDanish author
- Nis Rømerb. 1972DKDanish artist
- Nis TyrrestrupDanish guitarist
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 26 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 3.7K | #2,875 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 552 | — |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 526 | #2,076 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 138 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 15 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 10 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 9 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 7 | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name 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 Nis mean, and where does it come from?
- A nix; a hobgoblin, especially one that resides in a farm house. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Nis?
- A machine transcription gives /nis/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Nis have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 3.7 thousand people named Nis, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nis.
- Where is Nis most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Nis is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 25 thousand people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Nis?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 3,695 people named Nis, about 1 in 57 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Nis?
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/nisThe 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, “Nis”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.