Cerni

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Cerni is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Croatia than in any other country. Recorded meaning: inflection of cernere:.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 2.9M(measured from records)
  • HRCroatia1 in 22K
  • ITItaly≈1 in 323K

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.

Croatia (measured from records)

195 people, 2021

Sources
110 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)

Croatia

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

inflection of cernere:

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Cerni 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 Cerni is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
HR Croatia1951 in 22K195—2
IT Italy≈190 est.≈1 in 323KlistedCerni10
US United States1151 in 2.9M116Cerni110
BR Brazil631 in 3.4M63——
AU Australia≈52 est.≈1 in 494K—Cerni41
AT Austria≈15 est.≈1 in 593K—Cerni5
NO Norway121 in 456K12——

195 people counted by DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form), 2021. 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; DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the xinhua-italian-manual register. 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)

Cerni is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Croatian surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Serbia, Slovenia

    Languages: Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian

    Also written Černi, Cherni, Cherny, Черни, Ćerni

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Peru, Spain

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Černi

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States

    Also written Černi

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States

    Also written Černi

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Černi

  • Czech surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia

    Also written Černí, Černi

17 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)

Cerni 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 Italian, forma pl. italiana de Cerne.

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

  • In Latin, present passive infinitive of cernō

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

  • In Catalan, inflection of cerndre:

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

  • In Romanian, to paint black

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

  • In fur, to choose

    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)

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 14 sources across 8 countries.

Official registers attesting Cerni
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020116#145,028
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010115#144,141
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000109#140,756
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—63#89,008
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—12#51,504
IT Italy意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 Cerni mean, and where does it come from?
inflection of cernere: Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Cerni have the most bearers?
In Croatia, the national register counted about 195 people named Cerni, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Cerni most common?
Cerni is densest in Croatia, where the national register counts about 1 in 22 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Cerni?
In Croatia, the national register counted 195 people named Cerni in 2021, about 1 in 22 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Cerni?

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

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Cerni”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Cerni parses inside a full name →