Pat
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ,2 Short form of both pPatrick and bPatricia
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pæt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pat is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 894(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 1.5K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.5K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 534 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 894 (inferred from the name graph)
40,768 people, 2020
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)
,2 Short form of both pPatrick and bPatricia. Pet forms: Patty, Pattie, Patti (2); Patsy.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Pat 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #410 | 40,768 | 1 in 8.2K | 24K | Pat | 534 |
| CA Canada | #252 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Pat | 246 |
| GB United Kingdom | #476 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | 131 | Pat | 271 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Pat | 48 |
| IT Italy | #862 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Pat | 52 |
| AU Australia | #489 | ≈8,400 est. | ≈1 in 3K | 1 | Pat | 191 |
| IE Ireland | #124 | ≈5,800 est. | ≈1 in 894 | — | Pat | 127 |
| NZ New Zealand | #315 | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Pat | 99 |
40,768 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–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)
Pat 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, The sound of a light slap or tap with a soft flat object, especially of a footstep.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, Abréviation de Patrick ou Patricia; du latin Patricius « patricien, noble ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
In dra-nor-pro, to take root
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In dra-nor-pro, to believe
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In sit-pro, vomit
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
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)
- Pat Brownb. 1905US32nd governor of California from 1959 to 1967
- Pat Nixonb. 1912USFirst Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974
- Pat Buttramb. 1915USAmerican actor (1915-1994)
- Pat Hingleb. 1924USAmerican actor (1924–2009)
- Pat Moritab. 1932USJapanese-American actor (1932–2005)
- Pat Roachb. 1937GBBritish professional wrestler and actor (1937-2004)
- Patrick Buchananb. 1938USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician and commentator
- Pat Barkerb. 1943GBBritish writer
- Pat Rileyb. 1945USAmerican basketball player, coach and executive
- Pat Cashb. 1965AUAustralian tennis 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).
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 59 sources across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 24K | #1,033 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 16K | #1,033 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1991 | 6 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2014 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2020 | 3 | #392 |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 1998 | 1 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Concise Dictionary of First Names (Hanks & Hodges, 2001) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Is Pat a male or female name?
- Pat is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- Where does the name Pat come from?
- ,2 Short form of both pPatrick and bPatricia. Pet forms: Patty, Pattie, Patti (2); Patsy. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- What does the name Pat mean?
- Recorded meaning: ,2 Short form of both pPatrick and bPatricia.
- How do you pronounce Pat?
- A machine transcription gives /pæt/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Pat?
- In the etymology graph, Patsy, Patty and Tricia are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Pat have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 41 thousand people named Pat, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pat.
- How common is the name Pat?
- In the United States, the national register counted 40,768 people named Pat in 2020, about 1 in 8.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Pat compared with other names?
- In the United States, Pat is the 410th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Pat?
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/patThe 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, “Pat” — the 410th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.