Lennon

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Irish Gaelic Ó Leanndáin, ‘descendant of Leanndán’, a nickname meaning ‘lover’, or Ó Lonndáin, ‘descendant of Lonndán’, meaning ‘little blackbird’

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

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

Lennon is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • IEIreland≈1 in 3.4K(inferred from the name graph)
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 10K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 12K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈99,000 people, est.

Sources
407 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.4K (inferred from the name graph)

Ireland, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from Irish Gaelic Ó Leanndáin, ‘descendant of Leanndán’, a nickname meaning ‘lover’, or Ó Lonndáin, ‘descendant of Lonndán’, meaning ‘little blackbird’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Lennon 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 Lennon is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈99,000 est.≈1 in 14K—Lennon12
US United States—10,7201 in 31K11KLennon407
GB United Kingdom—≈5,500 est.≈1 in 12K10Lennon208
AU Australia—≈2,400 est.≈1 in 10K—Lennon163
IE Ireland#268≈1,500 est.≈1 in 3.4K—Lennon121
JM Jamaica#527≈250 est.≈1 in 11K—Lennon12
KN St. Kitts & Nevis—121 in 4.5K12—3
VC St. Vincent & Grenadines—101 in 10K14——

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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)

Lennon is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Mexico, Chile

    Also written Lennón, Lênnön, Lénnon, Lénnón, Lënnön

  • Danish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Denmark, United Kingdom, Iceland

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Icelandic

    Also written Lënnön

63 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)

Lennon 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 English, From an Irish Gaelic surname; often linked to the Gaelic for "a little cloak" or "cloak".

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • ‘descendant of Leannari, a byname meaning ‘Lover’, ‘Par¬ amour’, ‘Concubine’. 2. Anglicized form of Gael. O Lonain ‘descendant of Lonan’, a personal name from a dim. of Ion blackbird. Vars.: (0’)Len(n)an(e), (O’)Lannan, Lan(n)on, Lannen, Lannin, Linnane, Leonard. (Of 2 only): O’Lonan(e), O’Lonnan. Dims, (of 2): O’Lonagan, O’Lonegan, O’Lanegane, O’Lannegan, (O’)Lanigan, Lannigan (Gael. O Lonagain).

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • 1. reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Leannain ‘descendant of Leanndn’, a byname meaning ‘little cloak’ (less likely, ‘sweetheart’). 2. reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic O Lonain ‘descendant of Londn’, a personal name from a diminutive of Ion ‘blackbird’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, A surname from Irish, notably of John Lennon (1940–1980), one of the Beatles.

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

  • In Swedish, Lennon är ett ursprungligt efternamn, som har blivit populärt som förnamn de senaste åren i olika länder. Det är den engelska formen av iriskans Ó’Leannáin, ’ättling till Leannáin (med betydelsen ’älskling’). En känd bärare av efternamnet är Beatles’ John Lennon (1940–80).

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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)

190019201940196019802000Julia Lennon, b. 1914Cynthia Powell, b. 1939John Lennon, b. 1940Thomas Lennon, b. 1951Paul Lennon, b. 1955Julian Lennon, b. 1963Thomas Lennon, b. 1970Neil Lennon, b. 1971Sean Lennon, b. 1975Aaron Lennon, b. 1987
  • Julia Lennonb. 1914GBmother of British musician John Lennon
  • Cynthia Powellb. 1939GBnot in their usual nameformer wife of John Lennon (1939-2015)
  • John Lennonb. 1940GBBritish musician (1940–1980)
  • Thomas Lennonb. 1951USAmerican documentary filmmaker
  • Paul Lennonb. 1955AUAustralian politician; Premier of Tasmania
  • Julian Lennonb. 1963GBEnglish musician; son of John Lennon
  • Thomas Lennonb. 1970USAmerican actor and screenwriter
  • Neil Lennonb. 1971GBNorthern Irish association football manager (born 1971)
  • Sean Lennonb. 1975USAmerican composer and musician, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono
  • Aaron Lennonb. 1987GBEnglish association football player (born 1987)

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)

FormalDear Mr Lennon,
InformalHi Lennon,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 74 sources across 35 countries.

Official registers attesting Lennon
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201011K#3,343
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202010K#3,406
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200010K#3,201
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026202612#170
VC St. Vincent & GrenadinesElectoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025)202510#252

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Lennon mean, and where does it come from?
from Irish Gaelic Ó Leanndáin, ‘descendant of Leanndán’, a nickname meaning ‘lover’, or Ó Lonndáin, ‘descendant of Lonndán’, meaning ‘little blackbird’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Lennon have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 99 thousand people named Lennon in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lennon.
How common is the name Lennon?
In the United States, the national register counted 10,720 people named Lennon in 2010, about 1 in 31 thousand residents.
How common is Lennon compared with other names?
In Ireland, Lennon is the 268th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Lennon?
A machine transcription gives /lɛnən/ (IPA) for English.

What do you want to know about Lennon?

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

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

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, “Lennon” — the 268th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Lennon parses inside a full name →