Salo

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: a type of fatback, or non-rendered underskin pig fat consumed in Central and Eastern Europe, usually seasoned

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

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

Salo is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Finland than in any other country, where it is the 69th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • FIFinland1 in 193(measured from records)
  • USUnited States1 in 113K
  • UAUkraine≈1 in 8.2Kas Сало

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 Salo 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.

Finland (measured from records)

28,928 people

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
142 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 193 (inferred from the name graph)

Finland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SaloLatin(measured from records)
СалоCyrillic(measured from records)
살로Hangul(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Сало in UA Ukraine, CN China.

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)

short form from Sal-/Salb-; cf. Saal, Sahle, Salig-, Selig- forms

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Salo is read(measured from records)

Salo is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English49%

    a type of fatback, or non-rendered underskin pig fat consumed in Central and Eastern Europe, usually seasoned

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

  • Ukrainian12%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Salo in Ukrainian.

  • Finnish9.5%

    a deep forest, wilderness

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

  • Spanish9.2%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Salo in Spanish.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Salo 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 Salo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FI Finland#6928,9281 in 19329KSalo104
CN China—≈5,800 est.≈1 in 242K—Сало1
UA Ukraine#851≈5,400 est.≈1 in 8.2K—Сало38
PH Philippines—≈3,000 est.≈1 in 37K—Salo16
US United States—2,9311 in 113K2.9KSalo142
SE Sweden—7171 in 14K717Salo42
NO Norway—2001 in 27K200Salo17
EE Estonia—≈91 est.≈1 in 13K71Salo13

28,928 people counted by DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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 — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); the ee-stat-nimed 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Salo is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname38 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Finland

    Languages: English, German, Norwegian

    Also written Salö, Saló, Šâlo, Salò, Sälö

  • Spanish surname22 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, Spain, Argentina, United States

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Saló, Sálo, Sälo, Salô, Sáló

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Finland

    Also written Saló

  • Polish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Finland, United States, Sweden

    Also written Saló

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Salö, Salò, Saló

  • Arabic surname15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Syria, Egypt, Türkiye, Iraq

    Also written Saló, Şalo, Śàlò, Śâlo, Sãlõ

53 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)

Salo is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, short form from Sal-/Salb-; cf. Saal, Sahle, Salig-, Selig- forms

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In Italian, first-person singular present indicative of salare

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

  • In Catalan, first-person singular present indicative of salar

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

  • In Filipino, catching with one's hand (of a ball, etc.)

    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)

1920194019601980Eeva Kilpi, b. 1928Arvo Salo, b. 1932Elina Salo, b. 1936Pirkko Työläjärvi, b. 1938Mika Salo, b. 1966David Salo, b. 1969Tommy Salo, b. 1971Sami Salo, b. 1974Teemu Salo, b. 1974Päivi Salo, b. 1974

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 Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 50 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Salo
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—29K#22
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—13K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.9K#10,871
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.8K#10,553
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.7K#11,290
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—717#1,364
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—200#7,894
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—71#1,254
EE EstoniaStatistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed)—65#1,351
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 7

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

Where does the name Salo come from?
short form from Sal-/Salb-; cf. Saal, Sahle, Salig-, Selig- forms Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How common is the name Salo?
In Finland, the national register counted 28,928 people named Salo, about 1 in 193 residents.
How common is Salo compared with other names?
In Finland, Salo is the 69th most common surname of 94,499 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Salo?
A machine transcription gives /ˈsɑɫoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Salo mean?
In English, a type of fatback, or non-rendered underskin pig fat consumed in Central and Eastern Europe, usually seasoned
What are other forms of the name Salo?
In the etymology graph, Salovaara is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Salo have the most bearers?
In Finland, the national register counted about 29 thousand people named Salo, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled salo.
Where is Salo most common?
Salo is densest in Finland, where the national register counts about 1 in 193 people carrying it.

What do you want to know about Salo?

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

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, “Salo” — the 69th most common surname in Finland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Salo parses inside a full name →