Sow
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/so/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sow is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Senegal than in any other country, where it is the 4th most common surname.
- SNSenegal≈1 in 57(inferred from the name graph)
- FRFrance≈1 in 6.4K
- MRMauritania≈1 in 1.5K
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.
- Senegal (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 266 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 57 (inferred from the name graph)
≈280,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Senegal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sow 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 | #4 | ≈280,000 est. | ≈1 in 57 | 218 | Sow | 87 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | 505 | — | 17 |
| FR France | #288 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.4K | 881 | Sow | 266 |
| ML Mali | #43 | ≈9,600 est. | ≈1 in 2K | 6 | Sow | 30 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | Sow | 13 |
| ES Spain | — | 3,696 | 1 in 14K | 3.7K | Sow | 55 |
| SL Sierra Leone | — | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 5 | — | — |
| MR Mauritania | #4 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 90K | Sow | 27 |
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: The page discusses common family names in Mauritania, reflecting the rich cultural heritage and diverse history of the c; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); DGE — candidate declarations, 41 party/coalition lists (legislatives anticipees 17 Nov 2024); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; NEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates. 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)
Sow 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.
In English, A female pig.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sbh, to shoot (with an arrow)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In lue, alternate
as a wordBantu Lexical Reconstructions 3 (BLR3), Tervuren 2002/2003
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)
- Mohamed Bechir-Sowb. 1907TDChadian politician
- Daouda Sowb. 1933SNSenegalese politician (1933-2009)
- Amina Sow Mbayeb. 1937SNSenegalese novelist, poet and short story writer (1937-2021)
- Dior Fall Sowb. 1968SNSenegalese magistrate
- Pape Sowb. 1981SNSenegalese basketball player (born 1981)
- Moussa Sowb. 1986FRSenegalese-French footballer (born 1986)
- Samba Sowb. 1989MLMalian association football player
- Coumba Sowb. 1994CHSwiss footballer
- Djibril Sowb. 1997CHSwiss association football player
- Saïdou Sowb. 2002GNGuinean-French football 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 44 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 3.7K | #1,406 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 3.7K | #1,406 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 894 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 881 | — |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 505 | #967 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 308 | — |
| SN Senegal | DGE — candidate declarations, 41 party/coalition lists (legislatives anticipees 17 Nov 2024) | 2024 | 218 | #6 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 81 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 27 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 7 | — |
| ML Mali | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 6 | #41 |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- What does the name Sow mean, and where does it come from?
- from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Sow?
- A machine transcription gives /so/ (IPA) for French.
- What are other forms of the name Sow?
- In the etymology graph, Sowe is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Sow have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 278 thousand people named Sow in Senegal, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sow.
- How common is the name Sow?
- In Spain, the national register counted 3,696 people named Sow, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.
- How common is Sow compared with other names?
- In Senegal, Sow is the 4th most common surname of 3,622 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sow?
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/sowThe 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, “Sow” — the 4th most common surname in Senegal. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.