Abu
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Arabic: father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father). Comp. Umm |, mother
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈæbu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Abu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Jordan than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common surname.
- JOJordan≈1 in 67(inferred from the name graph)
- ILIsrael≈1 in 157
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 342
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.
- Jordan (inferred from the name graph)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 287 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 67 (inferred from the name graph)
≈160,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Jordan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father). Comp. Umm |, mother
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of Muslim Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Abu is read(measured from records)
Abu is one spelling over 4 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.
- Hebrew33%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Abu in Hebrew.
- Arabic17%
father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father). Comp. Umm |, mother
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
- Malay16%
ash (solid remains of a fire)
as a wordrecorded as Indonesiankaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English12%
A language of Papua New Guinea.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Abu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JO Jordan | #2 | ≈160,000 est. | ≈1 in 67 | — | Abu | 122 |
| NG Nigeria | #203 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | listed | Abu | 78 |
| MY Malaysia | #19 | ≈95,000 est. | ≈1 in 342 | — | Abu | 128 |
| ID Indonesia | #937 | ≈95,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Abu | 149 |
| BD Bangladesh | #64 | ≈74,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | listed | Abu | 159 |
| IL Israel | #32 | ≈55,000 est. | ≈1 in 157 | — | Abu | 92 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | #266 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Abu | 110 |
| PS Palestine | #182 | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 880 | — | Abu | 65 |
| IN India | — | 2,685 | 1 in 494K | 2.7K | Abu | 136 |
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. 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)
Abu 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.
Hanifah fatner of a pious woman.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
Y'áqub ترقعلولا father of Ya’qub.
as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
Nobility
as a nameThe book of African names
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)
- Ahmad Abu Labanb. 1946PSPalestinian-Danish imam
- Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzookb. 1951PSHamas leader
- Hanan Abu Huseinb. 1972ILIsraeli artist
- Eva Abu Halawehb. 1975JOJordanian human rights activist
- Dalal Abu Amnehb. 1983ILArab-Palestinian singer and neuroscientist
- Dareen Abu Ghaidab. 1984CAAnchorwoman
- Murad Abu Anzab. 1986ILArab-Bedouin-Israeli association footballer
- Mohammed Abub. 1991GHGhanaian professional footballer
- Abdul-Malik Abub. 1995USNigerian basketball player (born 1995)
- Avi Aburomib. 1996ILnot in their usual nameArab-Israeli Muslim singer who converted to Judaism
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 70 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 2.7K | #2,507 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 1.3K | #4,406 |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- What does the name Abu mean, and where does it come from?
- father. Used as a kunya (nickname), making a compound whose first part is Abu (father). Comp. Umm |, mother Recorded by A Dictionary of Muslim Names.
- How do you pronounce Abu?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈæbu/ (IPA) for Hebrew.
- In which country does Abu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 162 thousand people named Abu in Jordan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled abu.
- How common is the name Abu?
- In India, the national register counted 2,685 people named Abu, about 1 in 494 thousand residents.
- How common is Abu compared with other names?
- In Jordan, Abu is the 2nd most common surname of 26,255 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Abu?
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/abuThe 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, “Abu” — the 2nd most common surname in Jordan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.