Gumede
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Zulu origin; sense of "to finish what you have started."
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɡmʲiːd/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gumede is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country, where it is the 20th most common surname.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 475(inferred from the name graph)
- ZWZimbabwe≈1 in 11K
- BWBotswana≈1 in 14K
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.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 88 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 475 (inferred from the name graph)
≈120,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Zulu origin; sense of "to finish what you have started.".
Sources 1
- sanames.co.za — South African surnames
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gumede 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 | #20 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 475 | 3.2K | Gumede | 88 |
| ZW Zimbabwe | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Gumede | 9 |
| BW Botswana | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 14K | listed | — | 4 |
| ZM Zambia | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 132K | — | Gumede | 5 |
| SZ Eswatini | — | ≈63 est. | ≈1 in 17K | 2 | — | 3 |
| GA Gabon | — | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 43K | — | Gumede | 1 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 15 | 1 in 560K | 15 | — | 1 |
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: Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Elizabeth Komikie Gumedeb. 1921ZASouth African anti-apartheid activist (1921 – 2016)
- Robert Gumedeb. 1963ZASouth African businessman and philanthropist
- Nkosingiphile Gumedeb. 1993ZAAssociation footballer
- Celimpilo Gumedeb. 2000ZASouth African rugby union player
- Bongani Gumedeactor
- Donald Mlindwa GumedeZASouth African politician
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 9 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames | 2022 | 3.8K | #8 |
| ZA South Africa | Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames | 2021 | 3.8K | #8 |
| ZA South Africa | Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames | 2023 | 3.3K | #10 |
| ZA South Africa | Stats SA — Recorded Live Births (P0305): top-10 baby forenames & surnames | 2024 | 3.2K | #9 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 15 | #45,119 |
| SZ Eswatini | Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots | 2023 | 2 | #49 |
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
- What does the name Gumede mean, and where does it come from?
- Zulu origin; sense of "to finish what you have started.". Recorded by sanames.co.za — South African surnames.
- How do you pronounce Gumede?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡmʲiːd/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Gumede have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 119 thousand people named Gumede in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gumede.
- How common is the name Gumede?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 15 people named Gumede in 2024, about 1 in 560 thousand residents.
- How common is Gumede compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Gumede is the 20th most common surname of 285,788 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Gumede?
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/gumedeThe 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, “Gumede” — the 20th most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.