Khanum
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Female equivalent of khan
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kɑnəm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Khanum is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country, where it is the 47th most common surname.
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 2.9Kas Khanom(inferred from the name graph)
- PKPakistan≈1 in 43Kas Khanam
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 82Kas Khanom
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 Khanum 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.
- Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 127 (measured from records)
- 1 in 61K (inferred from the name graph)
≈56,000 named Khanom, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Khanam in PK Pakistan, BD Bangladesh, US United States and 2 more and Khanom in GB United Kingdom.
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)
Female equivalent of khan.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Khanum 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BD Bangladesh | #47 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Khanam | 76 |
| PK Pakistan | #209 | ≈5,500 est. | ≈1 in 43K | 1 | Khanam | 43 |
| US United States | — | 937as Khanam | 1 in 355K | 1.5K | Khanam | 127 |
| TH Thailand | — | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 82K | listed | Khanam | 9 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈810 est. | ≈1 in 82K | — | Khanom | 94 |
| NO Norway | — | 90 | 1 in 61K | 90 | Khanum | 6 |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈49 est. | ≈1 in 58K | — | Khanam | 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: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Khanum is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Arabic, princess, noble woman
as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names
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)
- Bahiyyih Khanumb. 1846IRdaughter of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, and Ásíyih Khánum (1846–1932)
- Farida Khanumb. 1929INPakistani classical singer
- Sabiha Khanumb. 1935PKPakistani actress
- Ferdousy Khanumb. 1960BDbadminton player
- Tahir Rafi KhanumESresearcher
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 25 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 410 | #54,291 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 285 | #68,949 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 151 | #108,734 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 90 | #16,712 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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 Khanum mean, and where does it come from?
- Female equivalent of khan. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Khanum?
- A machine transcription gives /kɑnəm/ (IPA) for Bangla.
- In which country does Khanum have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 56 thousand people named Khanom in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Khanum most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Khanum is densest in Norway — about 1 in 61 thousand people — even though Bangladesh holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Khanum?
- In Norway, the national register counted 90 people named Khanum, about 1 in 61 thousand residents.
- How common is Khanum compared with other names?
- In Bangladesh, Khanum is the 47th most common surname of 12,312 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Khanum?
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/khanumThe 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, “Khanum” — the 47th most common surname in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.