Giri

surname · Latin script

Meaning: One of the palaces occupied by Sikhī Buddha in his last lay life; called Giriyasa in the Commentary (Bu.xxv.16; BuA

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Giri is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • INIndia1 in 3.8K(measured from records)
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 24K
  • USUnited States1 in 422K

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.

India (measured from records)

350,945 people

#986 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
228 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 424 (inferred from the name graph)

Nepal, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

GiriLatin(measured from records)
ΓιριGreek(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)

One of the palaces occupied by Sikhī Buddha in his last lay life; called Giriyasa in the Commentary (Bu.xxv.16; BuA. p.201).

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Giri 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 Giri is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#159350,9451 in 3.8K351KGiri220
NP Nepal—≈71,000 est.≈1 in 4242Giri4
MY Malaysia—≈1,300 est.≈1 in 24K—Giri27
BD Bangladesh—≈1,000 est.≈1 in 162K—Giri10
US United States—7891 in 422K2KGiri228
DK Denmark—1471 in 40K147—2
FI Finland—1411 in 40K141—8

350,945 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)

Giri is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Girì, Giři, Girī

  • Hindi surname66 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Türkiye, United States, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Sinhala, Turkish

    Also written Guru, Gürü, ଗିରି, ଗୁରୁ, ଗୁର

  • Indonesian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, United States

    Also written Gïrï

  • Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, India, United States, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Gīřï, Gïrí, Girì, Gìrí

42 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)

Giri 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 pi, A Nigaṇṭha who occupied the Nigaṇṭhārāma later replaced by Abhayagiri Vihāra (Mhv. xxxii.43f., 83; Dpv. xix.14).

    as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)

  • In pi, A Nigaṇṭha living at Anurādhapura in the time of Paṇḍukābhaya (Mhv. x.98).

    as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)

  • mountain; honorific title given to rsis; number 8; cloud; ball.

    as a nameThe Penguin book of Hindu names for boys

  • In tuw-pro, 1 shore 2 line, row 3 riverbed

    as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)

  • In yog, scrap of cloth (leftover from cutting)

    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)

1850190019502000Varahagiri Venkata Giri, b. 1894Satyananda Giri, b. 1896Agam Singh Giri, b. 1927Narayan C. Giri, b. 1928V. Mohini Giri, b. 1938Banira Giri, b. 1946Nikhilesh Giri, b. 1978Anish Giri, b. 1994

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)

Formalआदरणीय श्री Giri जी,Respected Giri ji, (English)
Informalनमस्ते Giri जी,Hi Giri, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 40 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Giri
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—351K#69
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—85K#56
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202K#14,399
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010789#29,793
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000284#65,298
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—147#3,686
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—141#9,781
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—23—
NP NepalWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—2#53
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Giri come from?
One of the palaces occupied by Sikhī Buddha in his last lay life; called Giriyasa in the Commentary (Bu.xxv.16; BuA. p.201). Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh).
How do you pronounce Giri?
A machine transcription gives /ʒiɹi/ (IPA) for Hindi.
What does the name Giri mean?
Recorded meaning: One of the palaces occupied by Sikhī Buddha in his last lay life; called Giriyasa in the Commentary (Bu.xxv.16; BuA.
In which country does Giri have the most bearers?
In India, the national register counted about 351 thousand people named Giri, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled giri.
How common is the name Giri?
In India, the national register counted 350,945 people named Giri, about 1 in 3.8 thousand residents.
How common is Giri compared with other names?
In India, Giri is the 159th most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Giri?

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

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, “Giri” — the 159th most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Giri parses inside a full name →