Alemu
org · Latin script
Meaning: His world
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Alemu is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ethiopia than in any other country.
- ETEthiopia≈1 in 302(inferred from the name graph)
- NONorway1 in 41K
- EEEstonia≈1 in 64K
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.
- Ethiopia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 170 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 302 (inferred from the name graph)
≈360,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ethiopia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Alamu in US United States, NG Nigeria, ZA South Africa and 1 more, አለሙ in ET Ethiopia and Alimu in CN China.
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)
His world.
Sources 1
- The African book of names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Alemu 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ET Ethiopia | ≈360,000 est. | ≈1 in 302 | listed | አለሙ | 60 |
| CN China | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 830K | — | Alimu | 6 |
| US United States | 1,100 | 1 in 302K | 2K | Alamu | 170 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈710 est. | ≈1 in 302K | listed | Alamu | 21 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 106K | — | Alamu | 8 |
| NO Norway | 134 | 1 in 41K | 134 | — | 14 |
| IL Israel | ≈90 est. | ≈1 in 96K | — | Alamu | 12 |
| EE Estonia | ≈19 est. | ≈1 in 64K | listed | — | 3 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Alemu 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 aa, combativeness
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nhg, lemon
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)
- Alemu Agab. 1950ETEthiopian musician and singer
- Elfenesh Alemub. 1975ETEthiopian marathon runner and Olympian
- Bethlehem Tilahun Alemub. 1980ETEthiopian entrepreneur and businessperson
- Dagne Alemub. 1980ETathletics competitor
- Alemu Bekeleb. 1990BHEthiopian long distance runner for Bahrain
- Habitam Alemub. 1997ETEthiopian middle-distance runner
- Alemu Megertub. 1997ETEthiopian long-distance runner
- Alemu AbebeETEthiopian politician
- Dawit AlemuETresearcher (ORCID 0000-0002-1334-5855)
- Getaneh AlemuETresearcher, ORCID id # 0000-0003-2424-1725
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 25 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2K | #14,606 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.1K | #23,185 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 405 | #48,877 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 134 | #11,754 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name 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 Alemu mean, and where does it come from?
- His world. Recorded by The African book of names.
- In which country does Alemu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 358 thousand people named Alemu in Ethiopia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled አለሙ.
- How common is the name Alemu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,100 people named Alemu in 2010, about 1 in 302 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Alemu?
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/alemuThe 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, “Alemu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.