Fabian

given name · Latin script

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

Fabian is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Uruguay it is the 22nd most common given name. In English, recorded as from the Latin personal name Fabianus, a derivative of the Roman family name Fabius, perhaps based on Latin fava ‘bean’.

rarermore common
  • ARArgentina≈1 in 612(inferred from the name graph)
  • CHSwitzerland≈1 in 675
  • COColombia≈1 in 691

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈94,000 people, est.

#540 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

Sources
403 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 612 (inferred from the name graph)

Argentina, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from the Latin personal name Fabianus, a derivative of the Roman family name Fabius, perhaps based on Latin fava ‘bean’

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Fabian is read(measured from records)

Fabian is one spelling over 3 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.

  • Spanish80%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Fabian in Spanish.

  • German6.6%

    patronymische Familiennamen zu Rufname Fabian.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

    männl. Vom. lateinischen Ursprungs, der auf einen mit der Endung »-änus« zu dem römischen Geschlechtemamen

    as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

  • English5.6%

    from the Latin personal name Fabianus, a derivative of the Roman family name Fabius, perhaps based on Latin fava ‘bean’

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

    Lat Fabianus ‘of Fabius’, probably from faba ‘a bean’; first attested Fabianus de Cam 1184 P (Ha).

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

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)

Fabian 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 Fabian is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#173≈94,000 est.≈1 in 853—Fabian268
AR Argentina#57≈74,000 est.≈1 in 6125.4KFabian159
CO Colombia#75≈71,000 est.≈1 in 6911Fabian178
US United States—43,0461 in 7.7K43KFabian403
PL Poland#77736,5771 in 1K37KFabian6
CH Switzerland#64≈12,000 est.≈1 in 675183Fabian157
AT Austria#117≈12,000 est.≈1 in 73321KFabian145
CR Costa Rica#367,2081 in 7077.2KFabian96
UY Uruguay#22≈3,500 est.≈1 in 959—Fabian80

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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the co-datosgov-candidates register; dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)

Fabian is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hungarian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, Switzerland, Romania, United States

    Also written Fábián, Fabián, Fàbiàn, Fàbián, Fábian

  • Polish given name14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Slovakia, Spain

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Fabián, Fábián, Fabian', Fãbīåň, Fábian

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Fabían, Fabiàn, Fábian, Fãbiăn, Fabián

  • Swedish given name12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, United States

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Fábián, Fabián, Fábian, Fäbïâň

  • Catalan given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina

    Also written Fabián

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Peru, United States, Ecuador

    Also written Fabián, 'Fabian, Fábián

  • French given name124 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, United States, Laos

    Languages: French, Lao, Spanish

    Also written Fabien, Fabienne, Fabián, Fabiënne, Fabiano

78 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)

Fabian is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • From the Late Latin name Fabidnus, a derivative of the old Roman family name Fabius (see Fabia). It was borne by an early pope (236-250), who was martyred under the Emperor Decius. The name was introduced into Britain by the Normans and occurs occasionally in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it has never been much used in the Englishspeaking world.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In Swedish, Fabian är ett latinskt namn, en förkortad form av Fabianus, som i sin tur är en bildning till släktnamnet Fabius. Detta kan vara bildat till faba ’böna’ eller beteckna härkomst, ’från Fabiæ’. Fabian och Sebastian var namn på två romerska martyrer (200-talet), som i den kyrkliga traditionen har förts ihop som tvillinghelgon. I både den rikssvenska och finlandssvenska almanackan 20 januari.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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)

1700180019002000Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, b. 1778Pär Lagerkvist, b. 1891Fabian Wagner, b. 1978Fabian Cancellara, b. 1981Fabián Orellana, b. 1986Fabian Hambüchen, b. 1987Ángel Di María, b. 1988Fabian Schär, b. 1991Jeison Murillo, b. 1992Fabián Ruiz, b. 1996

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 129 sources across 59 countries.

Official registers attesting Fabian
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,738
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202013K#2,699
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#3,034
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—5.4K—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026901—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—901#3,502
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026798—
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024183#6,759

Reference works 9

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

In which country does Fabian have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 94 thousand people named Fabian in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fabian.
What does the name Fabian mean, and where does it come from?
from the Latin personal name Fabianus, a derivative of the Roman family name Fabius, perhaps based on Latin fava ‘bean’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
Is Fabian a male or female name?
Fabian 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.
What are other forms of the name Fabian?
In the etymology graph, Fabien, Fabiano and Fabijan are forms of the same name in other languages.
How common is the name Fabian?
In the United States, the national register counted 43,046 people named Fabian in 2020, about 1 in 7.7 thousand residents.
How common is Fabian compared with other names?
In Germany, Fabian is the 173rd most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.

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

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, “Fabian” — the 173rd most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Fabian parses inside a full name →