Davis
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Forme anglaise apparentée à David, « bien-aimé »
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/deɪvɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Davis is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 4th most common surname.
- CNChina≈1 in 290(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 291
- USUnited States1 in 298
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #55 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 668 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 290 (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,800,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)
Forme anglaise apparentée à David, « bien-aimé ».
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Davis, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Davis 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈4,800,000 est. | ≈1 in 290 | — | Davis | 53 |
| US United States | #7 | 1,116,357 | 1 in 298 | 1.1M | Davis | 668 |
| GB United Kingdom | #5 | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 371 | listed | Davis | 389 |
| EG Egypt | #268 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 893 | — | Davis | 34 |
| IT Italy | #10 | ≈90,000 est. | ≈1 in 695 | 17 | Davis | 100 |
| IE Ireland | #4 | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 291 | — | Davis | 124 |
| NZ New Zealand | #6 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 310 | — | Davis | 173 |
| IS Iceland | #20 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 303 | 10 | Davis | 18 |
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; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). 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)
Davis is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Hijo de David
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Irish, This well-known Welsh name is associated with Mallow through Thomas Davis. O’Donovan’s statement that it is also a synonym of MacDavid or MacDavymore, a branch of the MacMurroughs in Co. Wexford, is disputed. IF App
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
In se, locative singular of davvi
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)
- Jefferson Davisb. 1808USPresident of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865 (1808–1889)
- Bette Davisb. 1908USAmerican actress (1908–1989)
- Nancy Reaganb. 1921USnot in their usual nameFirst Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989
- Miles Davisb. 1926USAmerican jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer (1926–1991)
- Angela Davisb. 1944USAmerican political activist, scholar, and author (born 1944)
- Viola Davisb. 1965USAmerican actress and producer (born 1965)
- Warwick Davisb. 1970GBEnglish actor
- Jonathan Davisb. 1971USAmerican singer
- Lauren Davisb. 1993USAmerican tennis player
- Ben Daviesb. 1993GBnot in their usual nameWelsh association football player (born 1993)
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 120 sources across 63 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.1M | #8 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.1M | #9 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.1M | #7 |
Reference works 8
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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 Davis mean?
- Recorded meaning: Forme anglaise apparentée à David, « bien-aimé ».
- In which country does Davis have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.8 million people named Davis in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled davis.
- How do you pronounce Davis?
- A machine transcription gives /deɪvɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Davis?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,116,357 people named Davis in 2010, about 1 in 298 residents.
- How common is Davis compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Davis is the 4th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Davis?
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/davisThe 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, “Davis” — the 4th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.