Adamu
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Adam (biblical figure)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/adamuː/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Adamu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Nigeria it is the most common surname.
- BEBelgium1 in 2.3Kas Adam(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 25Kas Adam
- NGNigeria≈1 in 21Mas Adaem
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 Adamu 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 236 (measured from records)
- 1 in 429K (inferred from the name graph)
13,574 named Adam, 2010
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Adam in US United States, ES Spain, BE Belgium.
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)
Adam (biblical figure)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 31 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Adamu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 13,574as Adam | 1 in 25K | 496K | Adam | 236 |
| BE Belgium | — | 5,165as Adam | 1 in 2.3K | 5.2K | Adam | 79 |
| PL Poland | — | 1,746as Adam | 1 in 22K | 401K | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | — | 1,416as Adam | 1 in 5.9K | 1.4K | — | 9 |
| NO Norway | — | 1,404as Adam | 1 in 3.9K | 19K | — | 6 |
| SK Slovakia | — | 245as Ádám | 1 in 22K | 245 | — | — |
| ES Spain | — | 65 | 1 in 769K | 25K | Adam | 13 |
| FI Finland | — | 13 | 1 in 429K | 6.1K | — | 3 |
| NG Nigeria | #1 | ≈10 est. | ≈1 in 21M | #2 | Adamu | 122 |
13,574 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census). 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)
Adamu is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Lithuanian, instrumental singular of Ãdamas (“Adam”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Hausa, Adam (biblical character)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- François Gaspard Adamb. 1710FRnot in their usual nameFrench artist (1710–1761)
- Robert Adamb. 1728GBnot in their usual nameBritish neoclassical architect (1728–1792)
- John Adamb. 1779GBnot in their usual nameBritish colonial governor of India (1779-1825)
- Frederick Adamb. 1784GBnot in their usual nameBritish Army general (1781 or 1784-1781)
- Adolphe Adamb. 1803FRnot in their usual nameFrench composer (1803–1856)
- Paul Adamb. 1862FRnot in their usual nameFrench novelist (1862–1920)
- Wilhelm Adamb. 1877DEnot in their usual nameGerman general (1877–1949)
- Ronald Forbes Adamb. 1885GBnot in their usual nameBritish Army general (1885–1982)
- Peter R. Adamb. 1957DEnot in their usual nameGerman film editor (1957–2023)
- Charlie Adamb. 1985GBnot in their usual nameScottish footballer and manager (born 1985)
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 34 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 397 | #55,761 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 229 | #82,317 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 116 | #134,037 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 65 | #37,187 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 65 | #36,957 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 28 | #36,932 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 13 | #43,263 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 9 | #65,843 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 7 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 7 | #160,420 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 5 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 5 | #100,649 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- 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 Adamu mean, and where does it come from?
- Adam (biblical figure) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Adamu?
- A machine transcription gives /adamuː/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Adamu?
- In the etymology graph, Adamo, Adamou and Akamu are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Adamu have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 14 thousand people named Adam, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Adamu most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Adamu is densest in Finland — about 1 in 429 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Adamu?
- In Spain, the national register counted 65 people named Adamu, about 1 in 769 thousand residents.
- How common is Adamu compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Adamu is the most common surname of 346,007 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Adamu?
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/adamuThe 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, “Adamu” — the most common surname in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.