Sanam
given name · Latin script
Meaning: idol, beloved
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Sanam is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Pakistan than in any other country.
- PKPakistan≈1 in 6.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- AFAfghanistan≈1 in 2.2K
- UZUzbekistan≈1 in 5.4K
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.
- Pakistan (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 153 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈36,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Afghanistan, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
idol, beloved
Sources 1
- Muslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sanam 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PK Pakistan | #810 | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | listed | Sanam | 50 |
| AF Afghanistan | — | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | — | Sanam | 5 |
| UZ Uzbekistan | — | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | listed | — | 2 |
| US United States | — | 935 | 1 in 356K | 830 | Sanam | 153 |
| KG Kyrgyzstan | — | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Sanam | 1 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈360 est. | ≈1 in 91K | — | Sanam | 6 |
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. 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)
Sanam 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 yka, species of black ant (they live on trees, such as lansones and coconut trees); one of the divisions of living creatures (includes insects, vermin, other things that creep or crawl)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Portuguese, third-person plural present indicative of sanar
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, accusative feminine singular of sānus
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In poz-wmp-pro, ant sp.
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In tsg, an ant
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- Sanam Afrashtehb. 1976DEGerman actress and singer
- Sanam Saeedb. 1985PKPakistani actress, singer and model
- Sanam Marvib. 1986PKPakistani Folk and sufi singer
- Sanam Jungb. 1988PKPakistani actor-model
- Sanam MahmoudzadehUSresearcher
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 43 sources across 28 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
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 Sanam mean, and where does it come from?
- idol, beloved Recorded by Muslim baby names (our 2,000 meaningful and beautiful names for boys and girls) English-Urdu with Roman.
- Is Sanam a male or female name?
- Sanam 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.
- In which country does Sanam have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 36 thousand people named Sanam in Pakistan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sanam.
- How common is the name Sanam?
- In the United States, the national register counted 935 people named Sanam in 2020, about 1 in 356 thousand residents.
- How common is Sanam compared with other names?
- In Pakistan, Sanam is the 810th most common given name of 77,659 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sanam?
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/sanamThe 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, “Sanam” — the 810th most common given name in Pakistan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.