Isse
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Somali
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Isse is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Somalia than in any other country, where it is the 12th most common surname.
- USUnited States1 in 584K(measured from records)
- DJDjibouti≈1 in 2.4K
- SOSomalia≈1 in 4K
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.
- Somalia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 107 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,900 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Djibouti, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname from Somali.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Isse 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SO Somalia | #12 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 4K | 6 | Isse | 22 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 49K | — | Isse | 9 |
| US United States | — | 570 | 1 in 584K | 896 | Isse | 107 |
| SE Sweden | — | 395 | 1 in 26K | 395 | Isse | 17 |
| DJ Djibouti | — | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | 1 | — | 8 |
| NO Norway | — | 310 | 1 in 18K | 310 | Isse | 19 |
| DK Denmark | — | 155 | 1 in 38K | 155 | — | 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; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Puntland PEC/TPEC local-council candidate lists; Journal Officiel — Decret 2023-028, listes des candidats (legislatives 2023). 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)
Isse 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 pi, vocative singular of issā (“jealousy”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of his (“his”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nap, plural of ìsso (“he”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Danish, scalp; the part of the head where hair sometimes grows
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, perfect active infinitive of eō
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)
- Carlos Isseactor
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 31 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 896 | #28,341 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 570 | #38,754 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 395 | #2,317 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 310 | #4,906 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 228 | #78,035 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 155 | #3,430 |
| SO Somalia | Puntland PEC/TPEC local-council candidate lists | 2023 | 6 | #48 |
| DJ Djibouti | Journal Officiel — Decret 2023-028, listes des candidats (legislatives 2023) | 2023 | 1 | #10 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Isse mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Somali. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Isse?
- A machine transcription gives /ɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Isse have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.9 thousand people named Isse in Somalia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled isse.
- How common is the name Isse?
- In the United States, the national register counted 570 people named Isse in 2010, about 1 in 584 thousand residents.
- How common is Isse compared with other names?
- In Somalia, Isse is the 12th most common surname of 1,614 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Isse?
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/isseThe 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, “Isse” — the 12th most common surname in Somalia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.