Fernando

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in Spanish: a male given name from Gothic

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

/feɾnando/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Fernando is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 30th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • PTPortugal≈1 in 173(inferred from the name graph)
  • ARArgentina≈1 in 204
  • PYParaguay≈1 in 250

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Fernando itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Brazil (measured from records)

523,152 named Fernanda, 2022

#173 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
521 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 173 (inferred from the name graph)

Portugal, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

FernandoLatin(measured from records)
ФернандоCyrillic(measured from records)
ΦερνάντοGreek(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)

Spanish and Portuguese form of Ferdinand

Sources 1

  • Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Fernando is read(measured from records)

Fernando is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • Spanish66%

    a male given name from Gothic

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

  • Portuguese17%

    a male given name, equivalent to English Ferdinand

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

  • English7.2%

    Spanish and Portuguese form of Ferdinand

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

    A male given name from Spanish of Spanish origin. Diminutive: Nando, Fer

    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)

Fernando 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 Fernando is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#30523,152as Fernanda1 in 405556KFernando279
AR Argentina#41≈220,000 est.≈1 in 204591Fernando225
ES Spain#24191,9651 in 261197KFernando298
PH Philippines#119≈180,000 est.≈1 in 590—Fernando133
US United States#517151,6541 in 2.2K151KFernando521
PT Portugal#23≈59,000 est.≈1 in 173listedFernando201
PY Paraguay#383≈29,000 est.≈1 in 250—Fernando94
UY Uruguay—≈16,000 est.≈1 in 213759—127

523,152 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022, counting the spelling fernanda. 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 — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); the pt-irn-lista-nomes register; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)

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

  • English given name59 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Fernandoe, Fernándo, Fernando', Fernandó, Férñàñdö

  • Catalan given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Andorra, Argentina, Spain

    Also written Fernándo

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Fernándo

  • Sinhala given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sri Lanka, Peru, United States, Spain

    Languages: Sinhala, Bangla, Odia

    Also written Fernando', ফারনান্দো, ফেরনানদো, ফারনানদো

  • Indonesian given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, Peru, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Fernando, Fernándo, Fêrnândơ, Fernando'

  • Hindi given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, India, Peru

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Férnándo

  • Lao given name51 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Peru, United States, Thailand

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Frost, เฟอร์นันโด, Fenando, ฟีรอส, เฟอร์นานโด

95 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)

Fernando 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.

  • A modern form of the old Spanish name (Ferdinand (see main dictionary), which is a hereditary royal name. Also: Hernando, Fernan, Hernan. Fidel $ From Late Latin fidélis ‘faithful’.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In Italian, do nome germ. Frithunanths; latinizado em Fredenandus e Fernandus.

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

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)

1400160018002000Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, b. 1503Ferdinand VI of Spain, b. 1713Ferdinand VII of Spain, b. 1784Carlos I of Portugal, b. 1863Alfonso XIII, b. 1886Fernando Pessoa, b. 1888Fernando Henrique Cardoso, b. 1931Fernando Hierro, b. 1968Fernando Alonso, b. 1981Juan Fernando Quintero, b. 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)

InformalHola Fernando,Hi Fernando, (English)

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 124 sources across 61 countries.

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • 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

Where does the name Fernando come from?
Spanish and Portuguese form of Ferdinand Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
In which country does Fernando have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 523 thousand people named Fernanda, more than in any other country we hold.
What does the name Fernando mean?
In Spanish, a male given name from Gothic
What are other forms of the name Fernando?
In the etymology graph, Ferdinand, Fernand and Ferdi are forms of the same name in other languages; Hernán and Nando are recorded short or pet forms.
How do you pronounce Fernando?
A machine transcription gives /feɾnando/ (IPA) for Spanish.
Is Fernando a male or female name?
Fernando is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
How common is the name Fernando?
In Spain, the national register counted 191,965 people named Fernando, about 1 in 261 residents.
How common is Fernando compared with other names?
In Brazil, Fernando is the 30th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Fernando?

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

The 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, “Fernando” — the 30th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Fernando parses inside a full name →