Iliev
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɪliːɛv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Iliev is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bulgaria than in any other country, where it is the 15th most common surname. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Bulgarian Илиев (Iliev).
- DEGermany≈1 in 85K(inferred from the name graph)
- BGBulgaria1 in 173as Илиев
- RURussia≈1 in 146Kas Илиев
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Iliev itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Bulgaria (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 164 (measured from records)
- 1 in 19K (inferred from the name graph)
40,372 named Илиев, 2022
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Slovenia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Илиев in RU Russia.
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)
Borrowed from Bulgarian Илиев (Iliev).
Sources 1
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Iliev 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BG Bulgaria | #15 | 40,372as Илиев | 1 in 173 | 45K | Iliev | 164 |
| RU Russia | — | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 146K | — | Илиев | 97 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈950 est. | ≈1 in 85K | — | Iliev | 84 |
| ES Spain | — | 801 | 1 in 62K | 801 | Iliev | 49 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈630 est. | ≈1 in 99K | — | Iliev | 22 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 321 | 1 in 26K | 321 | Iliev | 20 |
| MK North Macedonia | #38 | 172as Илиев | 1 in 12K | 172 | Iliev | 23 |
| NO Norway | — | 146 | 1 in 37K | 146 | — | 14 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 111 | 1 in 19K | 111 | Iliev | 4 |
40,372 people counted by NSI — most common surnames (annual press release), 2022, counting the spelling илиев. 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: NSI — most common surnames (annual press release); NSI — most common surnames; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); State Statistical Office — living population names; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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)
- Nikolay Ilievb. 1964BGBulgarian footballer
- Ilian Ilievb. 1968BGBulgarian footballer (born 1968)
- Ivica Ilievb. 1979RSSerbian footballer
- Valentin Ilievb. 1980BGBulgarian footballer
- Georgi Ilievb. 1981BGBulgarian footballer
- Dimitar Ilievb. 1988BGBulgarian footballer
- Atanas Ilievb. 1994BGBulgarian footballer
- Dejan Ilievb. 1995MKNorth Macedonian association football player
- Ilian Ilievb. 1999BGBulgarian footballer (born 1999)
- Nikola Ilievb. 2004BGBulgarian footballer
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 32 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BG Bulgaria | NSI — most common surnames | 2018 | 45K | #9 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 801 | #5,392 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 801 | #5,384 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 321 | #4,091 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 146 | #10,800 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 111 | #4,031 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 Iliev mean, and where does it come from?
- Borrowed from Bulgarian Илиев (Iliev). Recorded by Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Iliev?
- A machine transcription gives /ɪliːɛv/ (IPA) for Bulgarian.
- In which country does Iliev have the most bearers?
- In Bulgaria, the national register counted about 40 thousand people named Илиев, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Iliev most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Iliev is densest in Slovenia — about 1 in 19 thousand people — even though Bulgaria holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Iliev?
- In Spain, the national register counted 801 people named Iliev, about 1 in 62 thousand residents.
- How common is Iliev compared with other names?
- In Bulgaria, Iliev is the 15th most common surname of 67,606 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Iliev?
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/ilievThe 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, “Iliev” — the 15th most common surname in Bulgaria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.