Sesay

surname · Latin script

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

Sesay is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Sierra Leone than in any other country, where it is the 8th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • MYMalaysia≈1 in 16K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 133K
  • SLSierra Leone≈1 in 103

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.

Sierra Leone (inferred from the name graph)

≈64,000 people, est.

Sources
258 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 103 (inferred from the name graph)

Sierra Leone, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Sesay 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 Sesay is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
SL Sierra Leone#8≈64,000 est.≈1 in 103132Sesay36
EG Egypt—≈5,400 est.≈1 in 19K—Sesay8
US United States—2,5061 in 133K3.6KSesay258
MY Malaysia—≈2,100 est.≈1 in 16K—Sesay4
CN China—≈1,200 est.≈1 in 1.2M—Sesay6
AE United Arab Emirates—≈190 est.≈1 in 51K—Sesay12
KW Kuwait—≈150 est.≈1 in 21K—Sesay6

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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; NEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates. 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)

Sesay is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Amharic surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Malaysia, Ethiopia, United Kingdom

    Also written ሰሳይ

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Šešāy

40 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1960198020002020Issa Sesay, b. 1970Ansu Sesay, b. 1976Isha Sesay, b. 1976Ola Sesay, b. 1979Benjamin Sesay, b. 1981Israel Sesay, b. 1990Adel Sesay, b. 1990Alie Sesay, b. 1993Mawa Sesay, b. 2005
  • Issa Sesayb. 1970SLSierra Leonean war criminal
  • Ansu Sesayb. 1976USAmerican basketball player
  • Isha Sesayb. 1976GBBritish journalist of Sierra Leonean descent. From 2005 to 2018, she worked as an anchor and correspondent for CNN International
  • Ola Sesayb. 1979SLSierra Leonean sprinter
  • Benjamin Sesayb. 1981SLSierra Leonean footballer
  • Israel Sesayb. 1990SLAmerican soccer player
  • Adel Sesayb. 1990SLSierra Leonean male sprinter
  • Alie Sesayb. 1993GBBritish association football player
  • Mawa Sesayb. 2005NONorwegian association football player
  • Fanta Sesayactress

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 32 sources across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Sesay
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020203.6K#8,842
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.5K#12,407
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.2K#21,156
SL Sierra LeoneNEC/ECSL — 2018 Local Council, Chairperson and Mayor nominated candidates2018132#4
SL Sierra LeoneNEC/ECSL — 2012 Councillor and Ordinary-MP/PCMP results tables201262#4
SL Sierra LeoneNEC/ECSL — 2012 parliamentary and Local Council nominated candidates201261#5
SL Sierra LeoneECSL 2023 Nominated Candidates (Presidential/Mayoral/Chairperson)20237#2
SL Sierra LeoneGovernment of Sierra Leone Gazette — 2023 public-service appointments20234#2
SL Sierra LeoneECSL — 2023 Members of Parliament nomination Gazette No.29 (nominators)20233#11
SL Sierra LeoneECSL — 2023 Members of Parliament nomination Gazette No.29 (candidates)20231#4
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

  • 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)
  • 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

In which country does Sesay have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 64 thousand people named Sesay in Sierra Leone, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sesay.
How common is the name Sesay?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,506 people named Sesay in 2010, about 1 in 133 thousand residents.
How common is Sesay compared with other names?
In Sierra Leone, Sesay is the 8th most common surname of 628 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Sesay?

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

The same 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), 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, “Sesay” — the 8th most common surname in Sierra Leone. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Sesay parses inside a full name →