Nigh

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Probably an altered spelling of English Nye, or possibly an Americanized spelling of German Neu or Ney

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 174K(measured from records)
  • ZMZambia≈1 in 2.4K
  • GHGhana≈1 in 38K

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.

Zambia (inferred from the name graph)

≈7,200 people, est.

Sources
257 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.4K (inferred from the name graph)

Zambia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Probably an altered spelling of English Nye, or possibly an Americanized spelling of German Neu or Ney.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Nigh 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 Nigh is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZM Zambia—≈7,200 est.≈1 in 2.4K—Nigh1
US United States—1,9131 in 174K1.9KNigh257
GH Ghana—≈770 est.≈1 in 38K—Nigh2
EG Egypt—≈240 est.≈1 in 433K—Nigh7
CA Canada—≈240 est.≈1 in 160K—Nigh65
BZ Belize—≈10 est.≈1 in 41K—Nigh1
BB Barbados#229———Nigh3

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. 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)

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

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Honduras

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Nïgh

  • Thai surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written ไนฮ์, ไนฮู, ไนฮ

38 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)

Nigh is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Near, close by, almost, all but.

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

  • In Scottish Gaelic, wash, cleanse, purify

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

  • In Irish, to wash

    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)

1880190019201940William Nigh, b. 1881Jane Nigh, b. 1925George Nigh, b. 1927Donna Nigh, b. 1933
  • William Nighb. 1881USAmerican film director, writer and actor (1881-1955)
  • Jane Nighb. 1925USAmerican actress (1925-1993)
  • George Nighb. 1927USAmerican politician (1927–2025)
  • Donna Nighb. 1933USAmerican First Lady of Oklahoma (b. 1933)

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 Nigh,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 9 sources across 3 countries.

Official registers attesting Nigh
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.9K#15,328
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.9K#14,680
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.8K#15,910
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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 Nigh mean, and where does it come from?
Probably an altered spelling of English Nye, or possibly an Americanized spelling of German Neu or Ney. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
What are other forms of the name Nigh?
In the etymology graph, Neighbor is a form of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Nigh?
A machine transcription gives /naɪ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Nigh have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 7.2 thousand people named Nigh in Zambia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nigh.
How common is the name Nigh?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,913 people named Nigh in 2010, about 1 in 174 thousand residents.
How common is Nigh compared with other names?
In Barbados, Nigh is the 229th most common surname of 11,500 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Nigh?

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

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, “Nigh” — the 229th most common surname in Barbados. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Nigh parses inside a full name →