Dilemma
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Dilemma is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- ITItaly
- DEGermany
- ESSpain
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
dilemma, predicament, quandary, conundrum, pickle, catch-22 (a situation with two (or more) alternatives to choose from, and where all alternatives are unsatisfactory or undesirable)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How Dilemma is read(measured from records)
Dilemma is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English52%
A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German11%
dilemma, predicament, quandary, conundrum, pickle, catch-22 (a situation with two (or more) alternatives to choose from, and where all alternatives are unsatisfactory or undesirable)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Dilemma 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 Swedish, a dilemma (difficult choice between unfavorable options)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Finnish, dilemma (between two alternatives)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, conclusion from two premises
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kr, and ddemta, 8. reflection
as a wordKanuri-English Vocabulary (in African Native Literature)
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.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 1 sources across 1 country.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 3 | #193,690 |
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Dilemma come from?
- dilemma, predicament, quandary, conundrum, pickle, catch-22 (a situation with two (or more) alternatives to choose from, and where all alternatives are unsatisfactory or undesirable) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What does the name Dilemma mean?
- In English, A circumstance in which a choice must be made between two or more alternatives that seem equally undesirable.
- What are other forms of the name Dilemma?
- In the etymology graph, Lemma is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Dilemma have the most bearers?
- Dilemma is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Dilemma?
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/dilemmaThe 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, “Dilemma”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.