Ismaili
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A branch of Shi'ism
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Ismaili is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country.
- TZTanzania≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- MAMorocco≈1 in 5.5K
- ALAlbania≈1 in 2K
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.
- Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 159 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈15,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Albania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
A branch of Shi'ism.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ismaili 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TZ Tanzania | #232 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | 1 | Ismaili | 17 |
| AF Afghanistan | #654 | ≈7,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | Ismaili | 3 |
| MA Morocco | #138 | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 5.5K | — | Ismaili | 68 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 2,202 | 1 in 3.8K | 2.2K | Ismaili | 36 |
| OM Oman | #179 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Ismaili | 38 |
| AL Albania | #102 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Ismaili | 43 |
| XK Kosovo | #234 | ≈800 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 1 | Ismaili | 8 |
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: INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search). 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)
- Rashidah Ismailib. 1941BJpoet, fiction writer, essayist and playwright
- Ismail Ismailib. 1978MKMacedonian association football player
- Hakime Ismailib. 1985CHSwiss association football player
- Jimilianb. 1994ALnot in their usual nameDanish musician of Albanian origin
- Florijana Ismailib. 1995CHSwiss football player (1995-2019)
- Fati Ismailib. 1997MKMacedonian association football player
- Valbona Ismailib. 2003DEGerman volleyball player
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 36 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 2.2K | #422 |
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 Ismaili mean, and where does it come from?
- A branch of Shi'ism. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Ismaili have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Ismaili in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ismaili.
- How common is the name Ismaili?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 2,202 people named Ismaili in 2024, about 1 in 3.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Ismaili compared with other names?
- In Tanzania, Ismaili is the 232nd most common surname of 112,969 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ismaili?
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/ismailiThe 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, “Ismaili” — the 232nd most common surname in Tanzania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.