Samba
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in French: samba (dance)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sɑ̃ba/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Samba is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Senegal than in any other country, where it is the 19th most common given name.
- SNSenegal≈1 in 194(inferred from the name graph)
- FRFrance≈1 in 15K
- GMGambia≈1 in 508
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.
- Senegal (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 229 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 194 (inferred from the name graph)
≈81,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Senegal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N);
Sources 1
- Sunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Samba is read(measured from records)
Samba is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- French43%
samba (dance)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Hindi30%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Samba in Hindi.
- English5.9%
A Brazilian ballroom dance or dance style.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
dance
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Samba 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SN Senegal | #19 | ≈81,000 est. | ≈1 in 194 | 68 | Samba | 60 |
| ML Mali | #25 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Samba | 29 |
| FR France | — | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 15K | 2.1K | Samba | 229 |
| GM Gambia | — | ≈4,300 est. | ≈1 in 508 | 7 | — | — |
| CM Cameroon | #944 | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Samba | 23 |
| ES Spain | — | 1,567 | 1 in 32K | 1.6K | Samba | 43 |
| MR Mauritania | #3 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Samba | 16 |
| GA Gabon | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 9.9K | 14 | — | 17 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); DGE — candidate declarations, 41 party/coalition lists (legislatives anticipees 17 Nov 2024); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative); IEC — Nominated Candidates National Assembly Elections 2022. 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)
Samba is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N);
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
Gift.
as a nameThe African book of names
In men, a broad open basket, lily, a present; a leading Sande member who, dressed in leaves, appears in the town and assembles the girls for initiation
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
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)
- Samba Gadjigob. 1954SNSenegalese filmmaker
- Adama Nianeb. 1966FRnot in their usual nameFrench actor (1966–2023)
- Samba Diawarab. 1978FRMalian-French football manager (born 1978)
- Samba Schutteb. 1983MRDutch-Mauritanian actor and cabaret artist
- Samba Diakitéb. 1989FRMalian and French footballer
- Samba Sowb. 1989MLMalian association football player
- Samba Camarab. 1992FRFrench association football player
- Samba Diallob. 2003SNSenegalese footballer
- Samba Lélé Dibab. 2003SNSenegalese footballer (born 2003)
- Samba Mamadou BaMRMauritanian diplomat
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 67 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 2.1K | #630 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1.6K | #2,090 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 1.3K | #1,041 |
| SN Senegal | DGE — candidate declarations, 41 party/coalition lists (legislatives anticipees 17 Nov 2024) | 2024 | 68 | #22 |
| GM Gambia | IEC — Nominated Candidates National Assembly Elections 2022 | 2022 | 7 | #5 |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Samba come from?
- a son of Jambavati and Krsna (P); Krsna (N); Recorded by Sunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names.
- How do you pronounce Samba?
- A machine transcription gives /sɑ̃ba/ (IPA) for French.
- What does the name Samba mean?
- In French, samba (dance)
- Is Samba a male or female name?
- Samba 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.
- In which country does Samba have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 81 thousand people named Samba in Senegal, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled samba.
- How common is the name Samba?
- In Spain, the national register counted 1,567 people named Samba, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
- How common is Samba compared with other names?
- In Senegal, Samba is the 19th most common given name of 3,375 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Samba?
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/sambaThe 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, “Samba” — the 19th most common given name in Senegal. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.