Little
loc · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Little is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: (i) From a nickname for a small person or a distinguishing name for the smaller of two people with the same name; (ii) a translation of the Scottish and Irish name Begg; (iii) a translation of names m.
- AIAnguilla≈1 in 2K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.6K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.8K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 534 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
105,936 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
St. Vincent & Grenadines
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
(i) From a nickname for a small person or a distinguishing name for the smaller of two people with the same name; (ii) a translation of the Scottish and Irish name Begg; (iii) a translation of names meaning “small” in various European languages.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Little 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 105,936 | 1 in 3.1K | 106K | Little | 534 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Little | 268 |
| CA Canada | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | 1 | Little | 238 |
| EG Egypt | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Little | 20 |
| AU Australia | ≈8,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | 1 | Little | 194 |
| GR Greece | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 2.3K | — | Little | 17 |
| MR Mauritania | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Little | 2 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | 74 | 1 in 1.4K | 74 | — | 4 |
| AI Anguilla | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Little | 5 |
105,936 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025). 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)
Little 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, OE “little”; first attested Eadric Litle 972 OEByn (Nth).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Translation of French Petit and Lepetit; also used as an English form of names such as Jean-Petit ‘little John’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Translation of any of various other European name meaning ‘little’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, translation of Gaelic 6 Beagain ‘descendant of Beagdn’ (see Begin).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, nickname for a small man, or distinguishing epithet for the younger of two bearers of the same personal name, from Middle English littel. Old English lytel, originally a diminutive of lyt (see Light 3).
as a nameDictionary of American Family 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)
- Dorothy Round Littleb. 1909GBBritish tennis player (1909–1982)
- Malcolm Xb. 1925USnot in their usual nameAmerican Black rights activist (1925–1965)
- Rich Littleb. 1938USCanadian-American impressionist and actor
- Cleavon Littleb. 1939USAmerican actor (1939–1992)
- George L. Littleb. 1950USNew Zealand costume designer
- Brad Littleb. 1954USGovernor of Idaho since 2019
- Dwight H. Littleb. 1956USAmerican film and television director (born 1956)
- Natasha Littleb. 1969GBBritish actress
- Steve Littleb. 1972USAmerican actor
- Joel Littleb. 1983NZNew Zealand pop musician
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 41 sources across 28 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 106K | #291 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 103K | #266 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 101K | #306 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 74 | #188 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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 Little mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) From a nickname for a small person or a distinguishing name for the smaller of two people with the same name; (ii) a translation of the Scottish and Irish name Begg; (iii) a translation of names m… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Little have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 106 thousand people named Little, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled little.
- Where is Little most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Little is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 1.4 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Little?
- In the United States, the national register counted 105,936 people named Little in 2010, about 1 in 3.1 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Little?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/littleThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Little”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.