Guinan
surname · Latin script
Meaning: reduced Anglicized form of two distinct Gaelic names, which have now become confused: 6 Cuinneain ‘descendant of Cuinnedn’, a personal name from a diminutive of conn ‘chief’, and 6 Cuineain ‘descendan
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɡwiˈnɑn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Guinan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- VEVenezuela≈1 in 63K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 123K
- USUnited States1 in 193K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 264 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 19K (inferred from the name graph)
1,727 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Guiñan in VE Venezuela.
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)
reduced Anglicized form of two distinct Gaelic names, which have now become confused: 6 Cuinneain ‘descendant of Cuinnedn’, a personal name from a diminutive of conn ‘chief’, and 6 Cuineain ‘descendant of Cuinedn', a personal name from a diminutive of cana ‘whelp’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Guinan 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 1,727 | 1 in 193K | 1.7K | Guinan | 264 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 123K | listed | Guinan | 84 |
| VE Venezuela | ≈460 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Guiñan | 13 |
| IE Ireland | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Guinan | 70 |
| MA Morocco | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 143K | — | Guinan | 5 |
| AU Australia | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 155K | — | Guinan | 66 |
1,727 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register. 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Guinan 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.
‘descendant of Cuinnean’, a personal name from a dim. of conn chief. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. 6 Cuineain ‘descendant of Cuinean', a personal name from a dim. of cana whelp. Var.: Guinane.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
‘descendant of Cuinnedn , a personal narne from a dim. of conn chief. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Cuineain des¬ cendant of Guinean, a personal name from a dim. of cana whelp.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
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)
- Joseph Guinanb. 1863IEIrish Roman Catholic priest, teacher, and novelist (1863–1932)
- Texas Guinanb. 1884USAmerican Prohibition era saloon keeper and entrepreneur (1884-1933)
- Danny Guinanb. 1901IEIrish guitarist
- Larry Guinanb. 1938IEIrish hurler
- Mary Guinanb. 1939USvirologist
- Megan Guinanb. 1950USAmerican actress
- Francis Guinanb. 1951USAmerican actor
- John Guinanb. 1961IEIrish Gaelic footballer
- Steve Guinanb. 1975GBBritish footballer (born 1975)
- Edward Guinanb. 2000USAmerican scientist
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 14 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.7K | #16,601 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.6K | #16,571 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.5K | #18,249 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- What does the name Guinan mean, and where does it come from?
- reduced Anglicized form of two distinct Gaelic names, which have now become confused: 6 Cuinneain ‘descendant of Cuinnedn’, a personal name from a diminutive of conn ‘chief’, and 6 Cuineain ‘descendan… Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Guinan?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡwiˈnɑn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Guinan have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.7 thousand people named Guinan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled guinan.
- How common is the name Guinan?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,727 people named Guinan in 2010, about 1 in 193 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Guinan?
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/guinanThe 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, “Guinan”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.