Berhanu

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Amharic (Ethiopia): 'his light'

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

/bɝhænu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Berhanu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ethiopia than in any other country, where it is the 16th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • ETEthiopia≈1 in 732(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 650K
  • MEMontenegro≈1 in 1.5K

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)

≈150,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
145 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 732 (inferred from the name graph)

Ethiopia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

BerhanuLatin(measured from records)
ብራሃኑEthiopic(measured from records)

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)

Amharic (Ethiopia): 'his light'

Sources 1

  • African Names

Where in the world(measured from records)

Berhanu 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 Berhanu is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ET Ethiopia#16≈150,000 est.≈1 in 732listedBerhanu38
US United States—5121 in 650K810Berhanu145
ME Montenegro#962≈420 est.≈1 in 1.5K—Berhanu1
ZA South Africa—≈120 est.≈1 in 456K—Berhanu13
SE Sweden—≈100 est.≈1 in 98K78Berhanu11
MR Mauritania#755≈87 est.≈1 in 46K—Berhanu1
LS Lesotho—≈16 est.≈1 in 123K—Berhanu1

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; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Berhanu is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Berhānu

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Portugal, United Kingdom, Ethiopia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Berhānu

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Ethiopia

    Also written Berhānu

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ethiopia

    Also written Berhānu

35 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)

Berhanu is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • his light.

    as a nameAfrican 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)

19201940196019802000Berhanu Dinka, b. 1935Berhanu Nega, b. 1958Birhan Getahun, b. 1991Berhanu Shiferaw, b. 1993Birhanu Legese, b. 1994Birhan Nebebew, b. 1994Berhanu Boru Bifftu, b. 2000

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)

FormalDear Mr Berhanu,
InformalHi Berhanu,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 26 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Berhanu
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020810#30,781
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010512#42,378
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000239#75,219
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—59#11,034
US United Stateswru 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 Berhanu mean, and where does it come from?
Amharic (Ethiopia): 'his light' Recorded by African Names.
How do you pronounce Berhanu?
A machine transcription gives /bɝhænu/ (IPA) for Amharic.
In which country does Berhanu have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 148 thousand people named Berhanu in Ethiopia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled berhanu.
How common is the name Berhanu?
In the United States, the national register counted 512 people named Berhanu in 2010, about 1 in 650 thousand residents.
How common is Berhanu compared with other names?
In Ethiopia, Berhanu is the 16th most common surname of 22,571 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Berhanu?

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

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, “Berhanu” — the 16th most common surname in Ethiopia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Berhanu parses inside a full name →