Montes

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Montes is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: patronymic from a short form of a Germanic compound personal name formed with -mund ‘protection’ as the final element.

rarermore common
  • COColombia≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
  • PEPeru≈1 in 1.2K
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 1.2K

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)

48,142 people, 2010

#755 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
414 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 938 (inferred from the name graph)

Costa Rica

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

MontesLatin(measured from records)
МонтесCyrillic(measured from records)
ΜοντηςGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

patronymic from a short form of a Germanic compound personal name formed with -mund ‘protection’ as the final element. Compare Raymond.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Montes 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 Montes is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—48,1421 in 6.9K48KMontes414
CO Colombia#162≈44,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K29Montes148
ES Spain#11239,6171 in 1.3K40KMontes206
PE Peru#175≈28,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Montes106
VE Venezuela#211≈25,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Montes77
SV El Salvador#189≈5,600 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Montes45
CR Costa Rica—5,4361 in 9385.4K—71
UY Uruguay—3,2471 in 1K3.2K—56
MX Mexico#103——3.5KMontes233

48,142 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: RENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); the co-datosgov-candidates register; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)

Montes is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Montés, Monte-S, Möntëš, Moñtes, Mõňtës

  • French surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Spain

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Montés, Montês, Móntes, Môntęs, Môntês

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Montês, Montès, Montés, Móntes, Monte-S

  • Lao surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Thailand, United States, Peru

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written มนเทศน์, มอนเตส, Monthet, Montés, Möntës

  • Indonesian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Montés

  • Norwegian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Denmark, Spain

    Languages: Norwegian, Danish, Swedish

    Also written Montés

  • Korean surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, United Kingdom, Spain

    Also written Montés

62 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)

Montes 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.

  • topographic name, a plural form of Monte.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, plural of mons

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

  • mountaineer

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • In French, second-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of monter

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

  • In Galician, second-person singular present subjunctive of montar

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

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)

1850190019502000Ismael Montes Gamboa, b. 1861Mélida Anaya Montes, b. 1929Pablo Montes, b. 1945Juan Montes, b. 1947Cecilia Morel, b. 1954Juan Pablo Montes, b. 1985Alexa Grasso, b. 1993Cándido Ramírez, b. 1993César Montes, b. 1997Gala Montes, b. 2000

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 38 sources across 23 countries.

Official registers attesting Montes
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201048K#723
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202047K#705
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—40K#117
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—40K#117
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200035K#901
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—5.4K#238
MX MexicoRENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset)—3.5K#108
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—3.2K—
CO ColombiaColombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co)—29#87
CR Costa RicaTSE — Consulta de nombres (Padrón Nacional Electoral name enumeration)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

  • 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)
  • 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

Where does the name Montes come from?
patronymic from a short form of a Germanic compound personal name formed with -mund ‘protection’ as the final element. Compare Raymond. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
What does the name Montes mean?
Recorded meaning: patronymic from a short form of a Germanic compound personal name formed with -mund ‘protection’ as the final element.
In which country does Montes have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 48 thousand people named Montes, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled montes.
Where is Montes most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Montes is densest in Costa Rica — about 1 in 938 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Montes?
In the United States, the national register counted 48,142 people named Montes in 2010, about 1 in 6.9 thousand residents.
How common is Montes compared with other names?
In Mexico, Montes is the 103rd most common surname of 206,803 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Montes?

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

The 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, “Montes” — the 103rd most common surname in Mexico. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Montes parses inside a full name →