Sensei
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A martial arts instructor; especially one for a Japanese martial art
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 1 country · latest register: SSA, 2025
Sensei is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States≈1 in 11Mfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 13Mfew records
- CACanada≈1 in 15Mfew records
carrying the name, as Mondonomo estimates it from our sources: no national register counts it in these countries. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 51 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11M (inferred from the name graph)
≈30 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
United States, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)A martial arts instructor; especially one for a Japanese martial art.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Sensei is read
(measured from records)Sensei is one spelling over 5 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.
- English35%
A martial arts instructor; especially one for a Japanese martial art.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French28%
sensei (martial arts instructor)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish8.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sensei in Spanish.
- Hindi6.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sensei in Hindi.
- Japanese5.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sensei in Japanese.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)Sensei 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | ≈30 est. | ≈1 in 11M | 5 | Sensei | 51 |
| PH Philippines | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 13M | — | Sensei | 4 |
| CA Canada | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 15M | — | Sensei | 7 |
| AU Australia | — | — | — | Sensei | 4 |
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: SSA — National Baby Names (1880–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 recorded senses
(measured from records)Sensei is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Indonesian, a martial arts instructor
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pau, teacher
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.
Evidence
(measured from records)1 register or reference work attests this spelling, across 1 country.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Sensei mean, and where does it come from?
- A martial arts instructor; especially one for a Japanese martial art. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Sensei a male or female name?
- Sensei is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- Which countries have the most people named Sensei?
- Mondonomo estimates about 30 people named Sensei in the United States, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sensei. After it come Philippines and Canada; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Sensei?
- Mondonomo estimates about 30 people in the United States have Sensei as their first given name, about 1 in 11 million residents. No national register counts it there; the figure is ours, calibrated against the registers that do.
What do you want to know about Sensei?
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/senseiThe 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, “Sensei”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.