Samm

given name · Latin script

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

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

Samm is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Main GB Location (1881): Beds.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 1.7M(measured from records)
  • SGSingapore≈1 in 282K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 292K

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)

≈260 people, est.

Sources
176 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 282K (inferred from the name graph)

Singapore, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Main GB Location (1881): Beds.

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Samm 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 Samm is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria≈260 est.≈1 in 833K—Samm16
GB United Kingdom≈220 est.≈1 in 305K136Samm89
US United States1931 in 1.7M310Samm176
CA Canada≈98 est.≈1 in 385K—Samm47
PH Philippines≈96 est.≈1 in 1.1M—Samm15
MY Malaysia≈89 est.≈1 in 366K—Samm9
AU Australia≈87 est.≈1 in 292K1Samm55
SG Singapore≈22 est.≈1 in 282K—Samm8

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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)

Samm is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, United States, Philippines, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Sầmm, Sâmm, Sàmm, Sämm, Sāmm

  • Hindi given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

  • French given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States

    Also written Sàmm

44 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)

Samm 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 Maltese, very hard

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

  • In mch, zooming

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

  • In Estonian, step

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

  • In Breton, fardeau

    as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)

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)

1940196019802000Samm Kunce, b. 1956Samm Bennett, b. 1957Samm Levine, b. 1982Samm Henshaw, b. 1994

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 Samm,

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 19 sources across 8 countries.

Official registers attesting Samm
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020310#68,391
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010305#65,066
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000294#63,450
GB United KingdomSurnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)2002136#27,252
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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 Samm mean, and where does it come from?
Main GB Location (1881): Beds. Recorded by The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland.
In which country does Samm have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 257 people named Samm in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled samm.
How do you pronounce Samm?
A machine transcription gives /səm/ (IPA) for English.
Is Samm a male or female name?
Samm 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.
How common is the name Samm?
In the United States, the national register counted 193 people named Samm in 2020, about 1 in 1.7 million residents.

What do you want to know about Samm?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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

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, “Samm”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Samm parses inside a full name →