Ronan
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Irish Gaelic Ó Ronáin, 'descendant of Ronán', perhaps meaning 'little seal'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ʁɔnan/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ronan is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 16K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 20K
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)
- Sources
- 318 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
13,407 people, 2020
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Irish Gaelic Ó Ronáin, 'descendant of Ronán', perhaps meaning 'little seal'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ronan 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 | — | 13,407 | 1 in 25K | 13K | Ronan | 318 |
| BR Brazil | — | 13,287 | 1 in 16K | 13K | Ronan | 137 |
| FR France | — | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | 16K | Ronan | 12 |
| IE Ireland | #135 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 85 | Ronan | 153 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Ronan | 59 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 20K | 9 | Ronan | 154 |
13,407 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM). 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)
Ronan 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 Irish, ‘Little seal’; king of Leinster in an Irish tragic legend and St Ronan.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Powerful; also feminine; Old Norse form of Ronaid
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
from Ó Rónáin ‘descendant of Rónán’, a personal name apparently based on a diminutive of rón ‘seal’.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
dant of Ronan’, a personal name apparently representing a dim. of ron seal. Vars.: (0’)Rona(y)ne. Cogns.: Fr.: Renan(d) (Brittany; Loc Ronan in Brittany takes its name from a solitary Ir. saint of uncertain date).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
cendant of Ronan’, a personal name apparently represent¬ ing a dim. of ron seal. Vars.: (0’)Rona(y)ne.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
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)
- Peter Riceb. 1935IEnot in their usual nameIrish engineer (1935–1992)
- Ronan Bennettb. 1956GBBritish writer
- Ronan Hardimanb. 1961IEIrish composer
- Ronan Pensecb. 1963FRroad bicycle racer
- Ronan Vibertb. 1964GBEnglish actor (1964–2022)
- Ronan Keatingb. 1977IEIrish singer (born 1977)
- Louis-Ronan Choisyb. 1977FRFrench actor and singer
- Ronan Farrowb. 1987USAmerican journalist
- Ronan Rafteryb. 1990IEactor
- Ronan Parkeb. 1998GBEnglish pop singer
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 83 sources across 41 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 16K | #1,241 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 13K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13K | #2,036 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 13K | #1,394 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 13K | #1,811 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.4K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 290 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 192 | #2,036 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 99 | #1,394 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 85 | #79 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 22 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2016 | 9 | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
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 Ronan a male or female name?
- Ronan 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 Ronan mean, and where does it come from?
- From Irish Gaelic Ó Ronáin, 'descendant of Ronán', perhaps meaning 'little seal'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Ronan?
- A machine transcription gives /ʁɔnan/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Ronan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 13 thousand people named Ronan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ronan.
- What are other forms of the name Ronan?
- In the etymology graph, Ronin is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Ronan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 13,407 people named Ronan in 2020, about 1 in 25 thousand residents.
- How common is Ronan compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Ronan is the 135th most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ronan?
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/ronanThe 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, “Ronan” — the 135th most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.