Boniface
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Latin bonifatius, from bonum ‘good’ and fatum ‘fate’; first attested Bonefacius uinitor 1193 P (Yorkshire)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɔnifkɛ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Boniface is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- TZTanzania≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- KEKenya≈1 in 1.3K
- NGNigeria≈1 in 3K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 144 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈71,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Tanzania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Latin bonifatius, from bonum ‘good’ and fatum ‘fate’; first attested Bonefacius uinitor 1193 P (Yorkshire)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Boniface 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈71,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Boniface | 66 |
| TZ Tanzania | #207 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 3 | Boniface | 37 |
| KE Kenya | #163 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 1 | Boniface | 59 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | — | ≈7,800 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 5 | Boniface | 18 |
| MW Malawi | #124 | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | 1 | Boniface | 12 |
| ZM Zambia | #424 | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | 2 | Boniface | 30 |
| UG Uganda | #107 | ≈3,300 est. | ≈1 in 13K | 2 | Boniface | 22 |
| US United States | — | 594 | 1 in 560K | 980 | Boniface | 144 |
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: Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners; INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; ECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Boniface 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 French, From Latin Bonifatius, from bonus 'good' and fatum 'fate, destiny'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, The proprietor of a hotel or restaurant; an innkeeper.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, a male given name of mainly historical usage
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, On appelait autrefois boniface un homme crédule jusqu’à la niaiserie. Aucun dictionnaire étymologique n’explique le rapport avec le prénom.
as a name2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)
In French, Origine latine, signifie « bonne destinée ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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)
- Boniface Ib. 370ITpope
- Boniface IIIb. 540ITpope
- Boniface IVb. 550ITpope
- Boniface Vb. 600ITpope
- Saint Bonifaceb. 675GB8th‑century Anglo‑Saxon bishop and missionary, Catholic saint and martyr, known as the ‘Apostle to the Germans’
- Boniface I, Marquess of Montferratb. 1150ITKing of Thessalonica
- Boniface IXb. 1356ITpope of the Catholic Church from 1389 to 1404
- Boniface Alexandreb. 1936HTHaitian politician (1936-2023)
- Boniface IIITpope and bishop of Rome from 530 to 532
- Boniface VIITpope
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 59 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 980 | #26,267 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 960 | #25,684 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 845 | #26,987 |
| KE Kenya | Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners | 2022 | 1 | #302 |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Boniface mean, and where does it come from?
- from Latin bonifatius, from bonum ‘good’ and fatum ‘fate’; first attested Bonefacius uinitor 1193 P (Yorkshire) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Boniface?
- In the etymology graph, Bonifacio, Bonifatius and Bonifác are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Boniface?
- A machine transcription gives /bɔnifkɛ/ (IPA) for Swahili.
- Is Boniface a male or female name?
- Boniface is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Boniface have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 71 thousand people named Boniface in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled boniface.
- How common is the name Boniface?
- In the United States, the national register counted 594 people named Boniface in 2020, about 1 in 560 thousand residents.
- How common is Boniface compared with other names?
- In Uganda, Boniface is the 107th most common given name of 2,133 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Boniface?
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/bonifaceThe 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, “Boniface” — the 107th most common given name in Uganda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.