Rurik
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Germanic *hrod- 'fame' + *rīk- 'power, ruler'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɹʊɹɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rurik is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country.
- FIFinland1 in 21K(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 57K
- ISIceland1 in 351K
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.
- Finland (measured from records)
- Sources
- 11 (measured from records)
- 1 in 21K (inferred from the name graph)
267 people
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
from Germanic *hrod- 'fame' + *rīk- 'power, ruler'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rurik 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | 267 | 1 in 21K | 739 | Rurik | 4 |
| SE Sweden | 179 | 1 in 57K | 179 | — | 3 |
| US United States | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 2.9M | 7 | Rurik | 11 |
| BR Brazil | 101 | 1 in 2.1M | 101 | — | — |
| DE Germany | ≈33 est. | ≈1 in 2.4M | listed | — | — |
| CL Chile | ≈29 est. | ≈1 in 637K | 1 | — | — |
| NL Netherlands | 22 | 1 in 785K | 22 | — | 2 |
| IS Iceland | 1 | 1 in 351K | 1 | — | — |
267 people counted by DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register). 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: DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry); the duden-vornamen-2007 register. 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)
Rurik 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.
In English, Russian, Scandinavian; form of Roderick, ruler
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Swedish, Rurik är en nordisk och rysk variant av det tyska Roderik (jfr → Rodrigo), sammansatt av fornhögtyskt hruod, hrōd, motsvarande fornvästnordiskt hróðr ’ära, beröm’ (jfr → Robert, → Rudolf, → Rolf ), och → -rik. Den fornsvenska formen är Rørik. Rurik (död troligen 879) var en vikingahövding som anses vara grundare av Ryssland. I den finlandssvenska almanackan 30 maj.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In English, Scandinavian founder of Russian
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, dynasty
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, männl. Vom., russische Form des altschwedischen Namens Rörik (
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
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)
- Rurikb. 830RUVarangian chieftain (c. 830-879)
- Rurik Rostislavichb. 1137UAgrand prince of Kyiv
- Rurik Lindquistb. 1870FIFinnish painter (1870-1950)
- Paul Rurik Bruno Malmströmb. 1872FIFinnish physicist
- Rurik Pihkalab. 1885FIFinnish researcher and politician
- Ryurik Ivnevb. 1891GEnot in their usual namePoet, novelist, translator (1891–1981)
- Rurik Ekroosb. 1902FIFinnish actor (1902–1977)
- Rurik Spolidorob. 1923ITItalian partisan (1923-1945)
- Rurik Lvovich Boehmeb. 1927RUSoviet and Russian ornithologist (1927–2000)
- Rurik Ahlbergb. 1972FIFinnish politician
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)
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 30 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 739 | #897 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 267 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 179 | #5,646 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 101 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 101 | #41,030 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2000 | 77 | — |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 74 | #22,811 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2002 | 58 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2003 | 57 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 56 | #46,104 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2006 | 56 | — |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2005 | 56 | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Rurik mean, and where does it come from?
- from Germanic *hrod- 'fame' + *rīk- 'power, ruler' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Rurik?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɹʊɹɪk/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Rurik a male or female name?
- Rurik is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Rurik have the most bearers?
- In Finland, the national register counted about 267 people named Rurik, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rurik.
- Where is Rurik most common?
- Rurik is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 21 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Rurik?
- In Finland, the national register counted 267 people named Rurik, about 1 in 21 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rurik?
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/rurikThe 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, “Rurik”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.