Salifu
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/səlɪfu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Salifu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Ghana it is the 94th most common surname.
- GHGhana≈1 in 2.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 12K
- GMGambia≈1 in 8.1K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 103 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈18,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Salifu 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Salifu | 41 |
| GH Ghana | #94 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 42K | Salifu | 57 |
| CM Cameroon | — | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Salifu | 3 |
| GM Gambia | — | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | 2 | — | 27 |
| US United States | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 2.6M | listed | Salifu | 103 |
| ES Spain | — | 80 | 1 in 625K | 80 | Salifu | 17 |
| SL Sierra Leone | — | ≈79 est. | ≈1 in 84K | 5 | — | 5 |
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: Ghana top-100 surnames (surnam.es); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); NEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates; IEC — Nominated Candidates National Assembly Elections 2022. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Mariama Salifub. 1983GHGhanaian athletics competitor
- Salifu Abdul Hafizb. 1990GHGhanaian musical artist
- Sule SalifuGHmayor of Tamale
- Salifu Mary BofuroGHformer member of parliament for Savelugu constituency
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 24 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | Ghana top-100 surnames (surnam.es) | — | 42K | #90 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 80 | #32,379 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 80 | #32,124 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- How do you pronounce Salifu?
- A machine transcription gives /səlɪfu/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Salifu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 18 thousand people named Salifu in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled salifu.
- How common is the name Salifu?
- In Spain, the national register counted 80 people named Salifu, about 1 in 625 thousand residents.
- How common is Salifu compared with other names?
- In Ghana, Salifu is the 94th most common surname of 36,883 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Salifu?
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/salifuThe 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, “Salifu” — the 94th most common surname in Ghana. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.