Rex
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Latin equivalent of 'König' from humanist usage; bearer count 986
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rex is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 3.3K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 5.6K
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)
- Sources
- 476 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈190,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Latin equivalent of 'König' from humanist usage; bearer count 986.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rex 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 | — | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.3K | — | Rex | 38 |
| PH Philippines | #367 | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Rex | 125 |
| US United States | #820 | 36,166 | 1 in 9.2K | 36K | Rex | 476 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Rex | 74 |
| GB United Kingdom | #870 | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 11K | 9 | Rex | 189 |
| AU Australia | #747 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 7K | 9 | Rex | 180 |
| HK Hong Kong | #720 | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Rex | 45 |
| NZ New Zealand | #320 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | 11 | Rex | 105 |
| SG Singapore | #476 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | — | Rex | 48 |
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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); 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)
Rex 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, dweller by the rushes; from ME rexe, rixe; first attested John Rex 1279 RH (C)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
From the Latin vocabulary word meaning ‘king’. This was not used as a personal name in Latin of the classical or Christian periods, and its adoption as a given name seems to have been a 19thcentury innovation. Its popularity was increased by the fame of the British actor Rex Harrison (1908-90), who was christened Reginald Carey. Rexanne ° Altered form of Roxane or feminine equivalent of Rex.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A king, particularly in ancient Rome.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Latin 'king'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In German, 1. from the place name Rekis = Röcken near Lützen; 2. Latinized from König; 3. Prussian name
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Rex Beachb. 1877USauthor and water polo player (1877-1949)
- Rex Stoutb. 1886USAmerican writer (1886-1975)
- Rex Ingramb. 1892IEIrish film director (1892–1950)
- Rex Everhartb. 1920USAmerican actor, singer (1920-2000)
- Dave Thomasb. 1932USnot in their usual nameAmerican restaurant owner and philanthropist
- Rex Reedb. 1938USAmerican film critic (1938–2026)
- Tony Hunterb. 1943GBnot in their usual nameAmerican biologist
- Rex Tillersonb. 1952US69th United States Secretary of State
- Rex Linnb. 1956USAmerican actor
- Rex Chapmanb. 1967USAmerican basketball player (born 1967)
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 80 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 36K | #1,126 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 281 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 106 | #1,126 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 11 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 9 | #382 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2016 | 9 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1984 | 6 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2022 | 4 | #352 |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2017 | 2 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2017 | 2 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 1 | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Rex a male or female name?
- Rex 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 does the name Rex mean, and where does it come from?
- Latin equivalent of 'König' from humanist usage; bearer count 986. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- In which country does Rex have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 191 thousand people named Rex in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rex.
- How common is the name Rex?
- In the United States, the national register counted 36,166 people named Rex in 2020, about 1 in 9.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Rex compared with other names?
- In New Zealand, Rex is the 320th most common given name of 26,737 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Rex?
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/rexThe 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, “Rex” — the 320th most common given name in New Zealand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.