Bamber
surname · Latin script
Meaning: From Baumber (Lincolnshire), or perhaps Bamborough (Northumberland); first attested Malger de Banburc 1190 P, de Bamburc’ 1202 P (L)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈbæmbɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bamber is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 29K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 509K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 93K
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.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 189 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 29K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,200 people, est.
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Baumber (Lincolnshire), or perhaps Bamborough (Northumberland); first attested Malger de Banburc 1190 P, de Bamburc’ 1202 P (L).
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bamber 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 29K | listed | Bamber | 164 |
| US United States | 653 | 1 in 509K | 687 | Bamber | 189 |
| CA Canada | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 159K | — | Bamber | 82 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 253K | — | Bamber | 19 |
| AU Australia | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 119K | — | Bamber | 66 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈53 est. | ≈1 in 93K | — | Bamber | 28 |
| IE Ireland | ≈42 est. | ≈1 in 122K | — | Bamber | 12 |
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: the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000. 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)
Bamber is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Lancs., originally ‘Bimme’s bridge’, from a ME personal name of uncertain origin.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, Person from Bamber Bridge, Lancashire.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, Malger de Banburc 1190, de Bamburc’ 1202 P (L); John Bamburgh 1428 FFEss; William Bamber 1524 SRSf. From Baumber (L). Sometimes, perhaps, from Bamborough (Nb).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In szl, farmer
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)
- Jack Bamberb. 1895GBEnglish footballer (1895–1973)
- Helen Bamberb. 1925GBBritish psychotherapist and human rights activist (1925-2014)
- David Bamberb. 1954GBEnglish actor (born 1954)
- Dave Bamberb. 1959GBEnglish footballer
- Jeremy Bamberb. 1961GBBritish murderer
- Jamie Bamberb. 1973GBEnglish actor
- Mike Bamberb. 1980GBEnglish footballer (born 1980)
- Natalia Bamber-Laskowskab. 1982PLPolish sportsperson
- Earl Bamberb. 1990NZNew Zealand racing driver
- Ellie Bamberb. 1997GBBritish actress and model
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 24 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 687 | #31,774 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 673 | #35,883 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 653 | #34,618 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of English Surnames (Reaney & Wilson, 1991) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
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 Bamber mean, and where does it come from?
- From Baumber (Lincolnshire), or perhaps Bamborough (Northumberland); first attested Malger de Banburc 1190 P, de Bamburc’ 1202 P (L). Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Bamber?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbæmbɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Bamber have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.2 thousand people named Bamber in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bamber.
- How common is the name Bamber?
- In the United States, the national register counted 653 people named Bamber in 2010, about 1 in 509 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bamber?
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/bamberThe 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, “Bamber”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.