Hector
given name · Latin script
Meaning: anglicized form of Gaelic Eachdonn, literally 'brown horse'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɛktor/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hector is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country, where it is the 26th most common given name.
- PRPuerto Rico≈1 in 121(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina≈1 in 132
- UYUruguay≈1 in 204
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.
- Argentina (inferred from the name graph)
- #226 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 506 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 121 (inferred from the name graph)
≈340,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Puerto Rico, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
anglicized form of Gaelic Eachdonn, literally 'brown horse'.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hector 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | #26 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 132 | 236 | Hector | 164 |
| US United States | #321 | 168,413 | 1 in 2K | 168K | Hector | 506 |
| CO Colombia | #94 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 413 | 118 | Hector | 170 |
| VE Venezuela | #52 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 256 | — | Hector | 115 |
| PE Peru | #88 | ≈77,000 est. | ≈1 in 416 | — | Hector | 119 |
| PR Puerto Rico | #7 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 121 | 7 | Hector | 108 |
| SV El Salvador | #93 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 278 | — | Hector | 73 |
| UY Uruguay | #14 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 204 | 1 | Hector | 83 |
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); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the co-datosgov-candidates register; Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012); SSA Baby Names — Puerto Rico (state file PR.txt). 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)
Hector 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 French, From Greek Hektor, related to “holding fast, defending”.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, from the Greek via French, the name of the Trojan hero; first attested Hector 1190 P (Sf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Greek; name of the Trojan hero in classical mythology.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Scottish; Anglicized form of the Gaelic personal name Eachann (earlier Eachdonn, already confused with Norse Haakon), composed of the elements each ‘horse’ + donn ‘brown’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from the personal name (see 2 above). In medieval Germany, this was a fairly popular personal name among the nobility, derived from classical literature. It is a comparatively rare surname in France.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Charles Hector, comte d'Estaingb. 1729FRFrench admiral during the War of American Independence (1729-1794)
- Hector Berliozb. 1803FRFrench composer and conductor (1803–1869)
- Hector Malotb. 1830FRFrench writer (1830–1907)
- Italo Svevob. 1861ITnot in their usual nameItalian writer (1861-1928)
- Hector Guimardb. 1867FRFrench architect (1867–1942)
- Hector Turnbullb. 1885USAmerican screenwriter (1885–1934)
- Hector Hodlerb. 1887CHSwiss Esperantist (1887-1920)
- Nigel Stockb. 1919GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor (1919-1986)
- Héctor Elizondob. 1936USAmerican actor
- Rupert Everettb. 1959GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor
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)
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 109 sources across 57 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 168K | #330 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 779 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 337 | #330 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present) | 2024 | 236 | #463 |
| CO Colombia | Colombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co) | — | 118 | #32 |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Hector mean, and where does it come from?
- anglicized form of Gaelic Eachdonn, literally 'brown horse'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Hector a male or female name?
- Hector is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Hector have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 344 thousand people named Hector in Argentina, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hector.
- What are other forms of the name Hector?
- In the etymology graph, Heitor, Ettore and Hektor are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Hector?
- A machine transcription gives /ɛktor/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- How common is the name Hector?
- In the United States, the national register counted 168,413 people named Hector in 2020, about 1 in 2.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Hector compared with other names?
- In Argentina, Hector is the 26th most common given name of 119,825 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hector?
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/hectorThe 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, “Hector” — the 26th most common given name in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.