Martyr
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Martyr is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom.
- USUnited States≈1 in 2.2M(inferred from the name graph)
- MQMartinique≈1 in 68K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 184K
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 (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 105 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 68K (inferred from the name graph)
≈150 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Martinique, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Martyr 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 | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 2.2M | listed | Martyr | 105 |
| AU Australia | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 184K | — | Martyr | 76 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈98 est. | ≈1 in 672K | listed | Martyr | 72 |
| BR Brazil | 93 | 1 in 2.3M | 93 | — | — |
| IN India | ≈48 est. | ≈1 in 28M | — | Martyr | 6 |
| GH Ghana | ≈40 est. | ≈1 in 739K | — | Martyr | 5 |
| MQ Martinique | ≈6 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 5 | — | — |
| SG Singapore | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 1.2M | — | Martyr | 6 |
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: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; the bbc-pronouncing-dictionary-british-names register; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (births by department), dpt 972 (Martinique). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- John Clifton Martyrbotanist
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 7 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 93 | #66,867 |
| GB United Kingdom | BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Martyr mean, and where does it come from?
- One who willingly accepts being put to death for adhering openly to one's religious beliefs; notably, saints canonized after martyrdom. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Martyr have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 153 people named Martyr in the United States, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled martyr.
- How common is the name Martyr?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 93 people named Martyr, about 1 in 2.3 million residents.
What do you want to know about Martyr?
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/martyrThe same 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), 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, “Martyr”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.