Al

loc · Latin script

Meaning: Short form of any of the names beginning with this syllable

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Al is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Netherlands it is the 42nd most common given name.

rarermore common
  • SASaudi Arabia≈1 in 883(inferred from the name graph)
  • AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 1.4K
  • LYLibya≈1 in 2K

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 Al 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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈150,000 people, est.

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
540 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 883 (inferred from the name graph)

Saudi Arabia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

AlLatin(measured from records)
แอลThai(measured from records)
আলBengali(measured from records)
ΑλGreek(measured from records)

3 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled L. in NL Netherlands, ID Indonesia, PH Philippines.

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)

Short form of any of the names beginning with this syllable.

Sources 1

  • A concise dictionary of first names

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Al 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.

Where Al is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈150,000 est.≈1 in 9K—Al33
ID Indonesia#662≈130,000 est.≈1 in 2KlistedL.196
SA Saudi Arabia—≈39,000 est.≈1 in 883listedAl197
EG Egypt—≈27,000 est.≈1 in 3.9K—Al119
PH Philippines—≈20,000 est.≈1 in 5.4K—L.123
US United States#64719,7451 in 17K19KAl540
MD Moldova—11,376as Ala1 in 29611K—14
CZ Czechia—7,568as Bára1 in 1.4K7.6K—2
AE United Arab Emirates#478≈7,100 est.≈1 in 1.4K—Al190
LY Libya—≈3,500 est.≈1 in 2K—Al48
NL Netherlands#4236as Aale1 in 480K222L.86

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; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); e-services.md — living population register; MVČR — living population register 2017. 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Al is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Uzbek given name14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan

    Languages: Uzbek, Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Ал, Ãl, Āl, Äl

  • a separate name19 spellings in the group

    Also written Āl, ̉al, A-L, Äl, ِal

  • Russian surname57 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Türkiye, Belarus

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Эл, Ель, Ел, El, Èll

  • Sinhala surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sri Lanka, Malaysia

    Also written A-L

  • Vietnamese surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Vietnam, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria

    Also written Ãl, Äl, Ãľ, Àl, Âl

  • Polish name13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland

    Also written Âl, Áľ, Åĺ, Ál, Ãl

  • Croatian name13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Ăl, Ãl, Aļ, Āl

  • Czech name26 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Slovakia

    Languages: Czech, Slovak

    Also written Äl, Ál, Aĺ, Áľ, Àl

79 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Al is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Initialism of assembly language.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • red colour; tent;

    as a nameMuslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman

  • In otk, orange-coloured brocade; orange colour; red; front, facing, prior position

    as a wordClauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish (1972)

  • In kr, s. manner, mode, custom, habit, peculiarity, way, fashion. alahdsar, s. the hour for prayer, about three o'clock p. m. aldkte, n. a. the act of creating, creation. dlakte, n. a. the act of turning, fanning. aldktema, s. creator, maker; also: alia aldktema, id. dlakte'ma, s. one who turns, fans. dlakterdm, s. an instrument for fanning

    as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)

  • In cdo, a dace, g the manis or scaly ant-eater, insects, a kind of insect, ling), (ching-ling), a wagtail, (cék-ling), the front teeth, a person's age, a kind of precious stone, a gem, a disease of the bladder, (gék-ling), to traverse, to pass over, the pupil of the eye, to look hercely

    as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect

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)

1850190019502000Al Ernest Garcia, b. 1887Al St. John, b. 1892Al Capone, b. 1899Al Hoffman, b. 1902Al Lewis, b. 1923Al Freeman, b. 1934Al Jarreau, b. 1940Al Gore, b. 1948Al Sapienza, b. 1962Al Jefferson, b. 1985
  • Al Ernest Garciab. 1887USAmerican actor (1887-1938)
  • Al St. Johnb. 1892USAmerican film actor (1892–1963)
  • Al Caponeb. 1899USAmerican gangster (1899–1947)
  • Al Hoffmanb. 1902USRussian-born American song composer (1902-1960)
  • Al Lewisb. 1923USAmerican actor, radio personality, politician (1923–2006)
  • Al Freemanb. 1934USAmerican actor, director and acting teacher (1934-2012)
  • Al Jarreaub. 1940USAmerican jazz and pop singer (1940–2017)
  • Al Goreb. 1948USVice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 (born 1948)
  • Al Sapienzab. 1962USAmerican actor
  • Al Jeffersonb. 1985USAmerican basketball player (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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 75 sources across 46 countries.

Official registers attesting Al
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020820#30,500
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010532#40,976
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000494#41,522

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 Al mean, and where does it come from?
Short form of any of the names beginning with this syllable. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
How common is the name Al?
In the United States, the national register counted 19,745 people named Al in 2020, about 1 in 17 thousand residents.
How common is Al compared with other names?
In the Netherlands, Al is the 42nd most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
In which country does Al have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 155 thousand people named Al in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled al.

What do you want to know about Al?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/al

The 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, “Al” — the 42nd most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Al parses inside a full name →