Promise

given name · Latin script

Meaning: an oath or affirmation; a vow

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

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

Promise is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • NGNigeria≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 3.6K
  • USUnited States1 in 86K

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.

Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)

≈120,000 people, est.

Sources
214 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)

Nigeria, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

an oath or affirmation; a vow.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Promise 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 Promise is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria#378≈120,000 est.≈1 in 1.8KlistedPromise110
ZA South Africa#578≈16,000 est.≈1 in 3.6K—Promise52
US United States—3,8571 in 86K3.4KPromise214
GH Ghana#431≈1,700 est.≈1 in 17K—Promise34
ZM Zambia—≈1,600 est.≈1 in 11K—Promise9
SZ Eswatini—≈250 est.≈1 in 4.4K2—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: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots. 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)

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

  • Spanish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Philippines

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Prömïsë

  • German given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, United States

    Also written Prômîsé

52 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)

Promise 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 Italian, third-person singular past historic of promettere

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

  • In Romanian, feminine/neuter plural of promis

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

  • In French, feminine singular of promis

    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)

19701980199020002010Promise Mthembu, b. 1975Promise, b. 1982Promise Sike, b. 1987Promise Amukamara, b. 1993Kelechi Iheanacho, b. 1996Promise Omochere, b. 2000Destiney Philoxy, b. 2000Promise David, b. 2001Promise Damala, b. 2002

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)

InformalHi Promise,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 31 sources across 17 countries.

Official registers attesting Promise
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020264#78,145
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010210#88,336
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000179#94,676
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 1

  • 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 Promise mean, and where does it come from?
an oath or affirmation; a vow. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Promise?
A machine transcription gives /pɹɑmɪs/ (IPA) for English.
Is Promise a male or female name?
Promise is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Promise have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 121 thousand people named Promise in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled promise.
How common is the name Promise?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,857 people named Promise in 2020, about 1 in 86 thousand residents.
How common is Promise compared with other names?
In Nigeria, Promise is the 378th most common given name of 138,191 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Promise?

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

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, “Promise” — the 378th most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Promise parses inside a full name →