Sani
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A Loloish language spoken in China
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈsæni/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sani is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Türkiye it is the 27th most common surname.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 297(inferred from the name graph)
- IDIndonesia≈1 in 8.2K
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 411as Şen
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sani itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- #345 (measured from records)
- 12 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 459 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 297 (inferred from the name graph)
≈720,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
20 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Sana in PK Pakistan, MA Morocco, Soni in IN India, Şen in TR Türkiye and Sanna in FI Finland.
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)
(Hin) personification of the planet Saturn
Sources 1
- A Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sani is read(measured from records)
Sani is one spelling over 5 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English35%
A Loloish language spoken in China.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Tibetan; Sherpa; the kind-hearted one
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- Hindi18%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sani in Hindi.
- Swahili12%
second; Hausa-Fulani name corresponding to Arabic ‘second’
as a nameAfrican Muslim Names
- Indonesian8.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sani in Indonesian.
- Arabic5.0%
brilliant, majestic, exalted, eminent, splendid. See Rafi‘ a3)
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
second
as a nameAfrican Muslim 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)
Sani 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈720,000 est. | ≈1 in 297 | listed | Sani | 63 |
| IN India | #78 | 218,303as Sen | 1 in 6.1K | 218K | Soni | 293 |
| TR Türkiye | #27 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 411 | #94 | Şen | 125 |
| PK Pakistan | #597 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | listed | Sana | 133 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | listed | Sani | 151 |
| AR Argentina | — | 16,831as Sena | 1 in 2.7K | 17K | Jona | 39 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | listed | Sana | 96 |
| FI Finland | — | 3,007as Suni | 1 in 1.9K | 26K | Sanna | 10 |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Sani is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
(Hin) personification of the planet Saturn
as a nameA Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India
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)
- Sani Abachab. 1943NGnigerian military ruler (1943-1998)
- Sani Yayab. 1963TGTogolese finance minister
- Sani Elhadj Magorib. 1971NENigerien journalist and screenwriter
- Sani Musa Danjab. 1973NGNigerian actor and musician
- Sani Maikatangab. 1975NGNigerian photographer
- Sani Bečirovičb. 1981SISlovenian basketball player (born 1981)
- Sani Issoufou Mahamadoub. 1983NENigerien politician
- Sani Marko BašičSISlovenian researcher
- Sani DoguwaNGPh.D. University of Essex 1988
- Sani RusSIresearcher
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 77 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 2.4K | #2,702 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 530 | #1,059 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 506 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 188 | #7,845 |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2015 | 111 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 70 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 59 | #4,616 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 29 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2015 | 7 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Sani come from?
- (Hin) personification of the planet Saturn Recorded by A Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India.
- How do you pronounce Sani?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈsæni/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Sani mean?
- In English, A Loloish language spoken in China.
- Is Sani a male or female name?
- Sani 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.
- In which country does Sani have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 721 thousand people named Sani in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sani.
- How common is the name Sani?
- In India, the national register counted 218,303 people named Sen, about 1 in 6.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Sani compared with other names?
- In Türkiye, Sani is the 27th most common surname of 619,652 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sani?
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/saniThe 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, “Sani” — the 27th most common surname in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.