Zahir
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Turkish: apparent
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Zahir is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country. In Oman it is the 26th most common given name.
- AFAfghanistan≈1 in 2.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 21K
- OMOman≈1 in 2.1K
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 Zahir 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.
- Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 99 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈34,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Oman, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
The external or apparent meaning of the Qur'an
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Zahir is read(measured from records)
Zahir is one spelling over 5 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.
- Turkish32%
apparent
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
1. Parlak, açık, belli. 2. Dış görünüş, dış yüz. 3. Coşmuş, taşkın.
as a wordTDK Kişi Adları Sözlüğü (official Turkish given-name dictionary)
- Urdu13%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Zahir in Urdu.
- English11%
The external or apparent meaning of the Qur'an
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Hindi8.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Zahir in Hindi.
- Spanish6.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Zahir in Spanish.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Zahir 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.9K | 2 | Zahir | 27 |
| AF Afghanistan | #49 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Zahir | 26 |
| DZ Algeria | #462 | ≈6,600 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | listed | Zahir | 27 |
| TR Türkiye | — | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Zahir | 37 |
| AZ Azerbaijan | #708 | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 3.2K | 82 | Zahir | 27 |
| US United States | — | 2,808 | 1 in 118K | 2.7K | Zahir | 60 |
| OM Oman | #26 | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Zahir | 47 |
| XK Kosovo | — | ≈760 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | 553 | — | 2 |
| GY Guyana | — | 150as Zaheer | 1 in 5K | 150 | — | — |
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; Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics; ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election. 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)
Zahir 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 Arabic, radiant, blossom
as a nameAfrican Muslim Names
‘Shining’, ‘radiant’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
ally; associate; helper
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
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)
- Zahir M HussainAUresearcher
- Zahir AliKRresearcher
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 84 sources across 46 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.7K | #5,900 |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | — | 553 | #1,074 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 356 | — |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 96 | #498 |
| AZ Azerbaijan | Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics | — | 82 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 63 | #5,900 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2007 | 7 | — |
| XK Kosovo | ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search) | 2024 | 1 | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Zahir mean?
- In Turkish, apparent
- Where does the name Zahir come from?
- The external or apparent meaning of the Qur'an Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Zahir a male or female name?
- Zahir 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 Zahir have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 34 thousand people named Zahir in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zahir.
- How common is the name Zahir?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,808 people named Zahir in 2020, about 1 in 118 thousand residents.
- How common is Zahir compared with other names?
- In Oman, Zahir is the 26th most common given name of 4,945 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Zahir?
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/zahirThe 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, “Zahir” — the 26th most common given name in Oman. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.