Ismo

given name · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/is̠mo̞/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Ismo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Short form of Ismael (equivalent to English Ishmael).

rarermore common
  • FIFinland1 in 872(measured from records)
  • SESweden1 in 35K
  • EEEstonia≈1 in 41K

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.

Finland (measured from records)

6,389 people

Sources
79 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 872 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Short form of Ismael (equivalent to English Ishmael).

Sources 2

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ismo 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.

Where Ismo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FI Finland#2006,3891 in 8728.5KIsmo79
SE Sweden—2891 in 35K289Ismo22
DZ Algeria—≈150 est.≈1 in 289K—Ismo3
NG Nigeria—≈130 est.≈1 in 1.6M—Ismo5
DE Germany—≈55 est.≈1 in 1.5M—Ismo30
LY Libya—≈37 est.≈1 in 187K—Ismo1
EE Estonia—≈30 est.≈1 in 41K5Ismo6

6,389 people counted by DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register). 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: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Ismo is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Finland, Côte d’Ivoire

    Also written Îsmô, Ismõ, Ìsmo, Îśmô

  • Hindi given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Išmo

  • Turkish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Finland

    Also written Işmo

  • Russian given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, Russia

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Исмо

36 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Ismo is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Portuguese, ism (any ideology, system of thought or practice)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Esperanto, a doctrine, theory, or practice; an ism

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Basque, ismu . "Ismo" , tendencia artística. . Zer iritziko diete 50 urteren buruan gaurko "ismuei"? MEIG I 110.

    as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia

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)

19201940196019802000Ismo Kallio, b. 1935Ismo Hölttö, b. 1940Ismo Kanerva, b. 1942Ismo Villa, b. 1954Ismo Alanko, b. 1960Ismo Lehkonen, b. 1962Ismo Lius, b. 1965Ismo Falck, b. 1966Ismo Leikola, b. 1979Ismo Vorstermans, b. 1989

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)

InformalHei Ismo,Hi Ismo, (English)

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 17 sources across 10 countries.

Official registers attesting Ismo
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—8.5K#219
FI FinlandDVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register)—6.4K—
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—289#4,027
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2001253—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2003252—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2002252—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2000251—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2004248—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)1999248—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2005247—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2007241—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2006241—

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia given-name 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 Ismo mean, and where does it come from?
Short form of Ismael (equivalent to English Ishmael). Recorded by Wiktionary and Nordic Names.
How do you pronounce Ismo?
A machine transcription gives /is̠mo̞/ (IPA) for Finnish.
Is Ismo a male or female name?
Ismo 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.
What are other forms of the name Ismo?
In the etymology graph, Samuel, Ismail and Ismael are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Ismo have the most bearers?
In Finland, the national register counted about 6.4 thousand people named Ismo, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ismo.
Where is Ismo most common?
Ismo is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 872 people carrying it.
How common is the name Ismo?
In Finland, the national register counted 6,389 people named Ismo, about 1 in 872 residents.
How common is Ismo compared with other names?
In Finland, Ismo is the 200th most common given name of 19,056 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Ismo?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ismo

The 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, “Ismo” — the 200th most common given name in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ismo parses inside a full name →