Modesto
loc · Latin script
Meaning: either a nickname from modesto ‘modest’, ‘unassuming’ or from the personal name Modesto, from Late Latin Modestus (meaning ‘moderate’, ‘gentle’, ‘temperate’)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Modesto is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 58K(measured from records)
- BOBolivia≈1 in 3.3K
- ECEcuador1 in 5.1K
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.
- Spain (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 244 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.3K (inferred from the name graph)
6,642 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Bolivia, est.
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)
either a nickname from modesto ‘modest’, ‘unassuming’ or from the personal name Modesto, from Late Latin Modestus (meaning ‘moderate’, ‘gentle’, ‘temperate’). The name was borne by several early saints, including a child martyred at Alexandria, Egypt, and an 8th-century evangelist of Carinthia.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Modesto 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | 6,642 | 1 in 7.5K | 7.3K | Modesto | 119 |
| US United States | 5,688 | 1 in 58K | 5.7K | Modesto | 244 |
| AR Argentina | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 8.6K | 270 | — | 47 |
| VE Venezuela | 3,993 | 1 in 7.2K | 4K | — | 24 |
| BO Bolivia | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Modesto | 20 |
| EC Ecuador | 3,289 | 1 in 5.1K | 3.3K | — | 29 |
| PA Panama | ≈750 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | 10 | — | 27 |
6,642 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); asosab — SAIME ID-card names (1896–1996); INEC — civil registry names; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Tribunal Electoral — Boletín, postulaciones for the 5 May 2024 general election. 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)
Modesto 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.
From the Late Latin personal name Modestus ‘restrained’. Feminine form: Modesta. N
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
From the Late Latin name Modestus ‘restrained’. Feminine form: Modesta.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Italian, Martire cartaginese; significato evidente, nome poco usato.
as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani
In Italian, Martire cartaginese. 12 gennaio. Significato evidente; ma è nome poco usato, forse in ossequio al proverbio: Frate Modesto non fu mai priore I. Qua e là cogn. Modesti. .stini.
as a nameNomi e Cognomi: Saggio di ricerche etimologiche e storiche
In Italian, forma ital. de Modestus
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
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)
- Modesto Cortázarb. 1783ESSpanish politician and lawyer (1783-1862)
- Modesto Lafuenteb. 1806ESSpanish critic and historian (1806–1866)
- Modesto López Oterob. 1885ESSpanish architect
- Modesto Valleb. 1893ITItalian association football player (1893-1979)
- Juan Modestob. 1906ESSpanish general (1906–1969)
- Tito Vázquezb. 1949ESnot in their usual nameArgentine tennis player
- Modesto Sorucob. 1966BOBolivian footballer
- François-Joseph Modestob. 1978FRFrench footballer
- Francesco Modestob. 1982ITItalian footballer
- Rui Modestob. 1999PTPortuguese footballer
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 61 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.9K | #15,231 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.8K | #16,087 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.3K | #19,436 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 387 | #9,820 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 387 | #9,807 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 270 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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 Modesto mean, and where does it come from?
- either a nickname from modesto ‘modest’, ‘unassuming’ or from the personal name Modesto, from Late Latin Modestus (meaning ‘moderate’, ‘gentle’, ‘temperate’). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Modesto have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 6.6 thousand people named Modesto, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled modesto.
- How common is the name Modesto?
- In Spain, the national register counted 6,642 people named Modesto, about 1 in 7.5 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Modesto?
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/modestoThe 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, “Modesto”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.