Fufu
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A dish of boiled, mashed cassava mixed with plantain, yams, or other starchy vegetables, common as food in West and Equatorial Africa and the Caribbean, and sometimes sold in dry powdered or granulate
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Fufu is a given name used for both men and women, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 150Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States≈1 in 8.9Mfew records
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 68Kfew records
carrying the name, as Mondonomo estimates it from our sources: no national register counts it in these countries. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 50 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 68K (inferred from the name graph)
≈430 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A dish of boiled, mashed cassava mixed with plantain, yams, or other starchy vegetables, common as food in West and Equatorial Africa and the Caribbean, and sometimes sold in dry powdered or granulated form.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Fufu 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 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | ≈430 est. | ≈1 in 149K | Fufu | 10 |
| SY Syria | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 177K | Fufu | 3 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 68K | Fufu | 3 |
| DE Germany | ≈44 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | Fufu | 16 |
| US United States | ≈38 est. | ≈1 in 8.9M | Fufu | 50 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈25 est. | ≈1 in 1.4M | Fufu | 4 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈20 est. | ≈1 in 890K | Fufu | 4 |
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.
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)Fufu 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 Akan, a. [2d. af. & red.] white; cf. fita, hoa, hyen, furu-ban. fuf u, n. white thing, what is white, pr. 3164. o-fufu, 2)1. A-y 1. white person, Euro2>can, but rarely used; s. Obdroni. — 2. ohiani fita. pr. 3149. mfufu, F. whiteness. Mf. Gr.p. 101
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In Ewe, fufu (a dish of boiled, mashed cassava mixed with plantain, yams, or other starchy vegetables)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In llu, to swell, distend body, have a swollen stomach; sp. of fish swollen like a football
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In kwd, fall, drip, be loose or crumbling (of soil or a foothold)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In niu, univalve shellfish, small and lumpy: sea snail
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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.
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Fufu mean, and where does it come from?
- A dish of boiled, mashed cassava mixed with plantain, yams, or other starchy vegetables, common as food in West and Equatorial Africa and the Caribbean, and sometimes sold in dry powdered or granulate… Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Fufu a male or female name?
- Fufu 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.
- In which country does Fufu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 431 people named Fufu in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fufu.
- How common is the name Fufu?
- Mondonomo estimates about 430 people in South Africa have Fufu as their first given name, about 1 in 149 thousand residents. No national register counts it there; the figure is ours, calibrated against the registers that do.
What do you want to know about Fufu?
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/fufuThe 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, “Fufu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.