Kalu
given name · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Igbo
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kʰaluː/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kalu is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 281K(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 2.9M
- USUnited States1 in 14Kas Kali
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 Kalu 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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 187 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈65,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Kool in US United States, NL Netherlands, KE Kenya.
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 surname from Igbo.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kalu 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 | — | ≈65,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | listed | Kalu | 38 |
| US United States | — | 23,482as Kali | 1 in 14K | 23K | Kool | 187 |
| BD Bangladesh | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 72K | — | Kalu | 20 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 281K | — | Kalu | 11 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈790 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Kool | 8 |
| LK Sri Lanka | #395 | ≈750 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Kalu | 25 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 6 | 1 in 2.9M | 5.1K | Kool | 84 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)
Kalu 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.
black complexioned.
as a nameThe Penguin book of Hindu names for boys
In tut-pro, a k. of fish
as a wordStarLing Tower of Babel etymological databases (Starostin et al.)
In mqs, to stir
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pmf, stiff, of something that has been bent for some time (as a limb); bent (as fingers that have cramped)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Latvian, first-person singular past indicative of kalt
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)
- Kalu Ikeagwub. 1972NGNigerian actor
- Kalu Guascob. 1981BRBrazilian basketball player
- Kalu Ucheb. 1982NGNigerian footballer
- Felix Nmechab. 2000DEnot in their usual nameGerman association football player
- Kalu Ojaheconomist (University of the Witwatersrand)
- Kalu DennisUSbasketball player
- Kalu AnyaNGNigerian film director
- Kalu Mba NwokeNGNigerian politician
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)
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 44 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1K | #25,711 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 670 | #33,941 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 387 | #50,686 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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
- How do you pronounce Kalu?
- A machine transcription gives /kʰaluː/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- What does the name Kalu mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Igbo. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Kalu a male or female name?
- Kalu is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Kalu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 65 thousand people named Kalu in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kalu.
- How common is the name Kalu?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 6 people named Kalu, about 1 in 2.9 million residents.
- How common is Kalu compared with other names?
- In Sri Lanka, Kalu is the 395th most common given name of 14,062 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kalu?
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/kaluThe 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, “Kalu” — the 395th most common given name in Sri Lanka. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.