Salihu
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Salihu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Kosovo it is the 32nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: Variant of Salih, “pious; righteous”.
- XKKosovo≈1 in 653(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 1.1K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 6.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Salihu itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 40 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 653 (inferred from the name graph)
≈200,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Kosovo, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Variant of Salih, “pious; righteous.”
Sources 1
- African Muslim Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Salihu 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 | — | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Salihu | 22 |
| XK Kosovo | #32 | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 653 | — | Salihu | 10 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 1,330 | 1 in 6.3K | 1.3K | Salihu | 15 |
| NE Niger | — | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 27K | 1 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 370 | 1 in 28K | 370 | Salihu | 15 |
| MK North Macedonia | — | 78as Салиху | 1 in 27K | 78 | — | 3 |
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: BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); State Statistical Office — living population names; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
- Otaru Salihu Ohizeb. 1953NGNigerian politician (1953-2016)
- Muhammad Tanko Salihub. 1954NGjudge at Federal High Court of Nigeria
- Leunora Salihub. 1977XKartist, sculptor (1977-)
- Diamant Salihub. 1983SESwedish journalist
- Monika Salihub. 1984XKKosovar singer
- Artan Salihub. 1984actor
- Salihu Jamilatb. 1986NGBusiness woman
- Jafar Salihu Umarb. 1992NGbadminton player
- Salihu IdrisNGResearcher
- Arbër SalihuXKKosovar singer, songwriter, artist and musician
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 24 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1.3K | #812 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 370 | #2,452 |
| NE Niger | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 1 | #139 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Salihu mean, and where does it come from?
- Variant of Salih, “pious; righteous.” Recorded by African Muslim Names.
- In which country does Salihu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 201 thousand people named Salihu in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled salihu.
- How common is the name Salihu?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 1,330 people named Salihu in 2024, about 1 in 6.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Salihu compared with other names?
- In Kosovo, Salihu is the 32nd most common surname of 4,329 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Salihu?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/salihuThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Salihu” — the 32nd most common surname in Kosovo. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.