Idowu
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Yoruba
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɪdaʊu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Idowu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country, where it is the 20th most common surname.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 621(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 76K
- USUnited States1 in 525K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 247 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 621 (inferred from the name graph)
≈340,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname from Yoruba.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Idowu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #20 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 621 | listed | Idowu | 130 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 76K | — | Idowu | 130 |
| US United States | — | 633 | 1 in 525K | 1.2K | Idowu | 247 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 322K | — | Idowu | 18 |
| MT Malta | #155 | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Idowu | 3 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈12 est. | ≈1 in 100K | listed | Idowu | 3 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 1 | 1 in 54K | 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)
Idowu is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Yoruba, Born after twins
as a nameThe book of African names
First child after twins
as a nameThe book of African names
Bom after twins
as a nameA Handbook of African Names
In Yoruba, a unisex given name, an orúkọ àmútọ̀runwá given to a child born directly after a set of twins
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)
- Idowu Philipsb. 1942NGNigerian actress
- Idowu Bamitale Omoleb. 1954NGformer Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Osun State, Nigeria
- Bakare IdowuNGNigerian blogger
- ChristianahNGnot in their usual nameNigeria based citizen from osun state
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 29 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.2K | #22,666 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 633 | #35,537 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 358 | #54,020 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026 | 2026 | 1 | #181 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- 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 Idowu mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Yoruba. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Idowu?
- A machine transcription gives /ɪdaʊu/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Idowu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 345 thousand people named Idowu in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled idowu.
- How common is the name Idowu?
- In the United States, the national register counted 633 people named Idowu in 2010, about 1 in 525 thousand residents.
- How common is Idowu compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Idowu is the 20th most common surname of 346,007 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Idowu?
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/idowuThe 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, “Idowu” — the 20th most common surname in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.