Shabani

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

Shabani is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country, where it is the 15th most common surname. Recorded meaning: (surname) Borrowed from Persian شعبانی.

rarermore common
  • TZTanzania≈1 in 332(inferred from the name graph)
  • XKKosovo≈1 in 335
  • BIBurundi≈1 in 1.7K

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.

Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)

≈180,000 people, est.

Sources
167 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 332 (inferred from the name graph)

Tanzania, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

(surname) Borrowed from Persian شعبانی.

Sources 1

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Shabani 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 Shabani is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
TZ Tanzania#15≈180,000 est.≈1 in 3325Shabani48
BI Burundi—≈6,800 est.≈1 in 1.7K2—9
XK Kosovo#459≈5,800 est.≈1 in 335—Shabani8
CH Switzerland—3,2671 in 2.6K3.3KShabani29
CD Congo - Kinshasa—≈3,200 est.≈1 in 32K1Shabani11
SI Slovenia—2491 in 8.4K249—1

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: INEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; CENI — Liste nominative definitive des candidats deputes 2025. 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)

Shabani is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Arabic surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Tanzania, Syria, Kenya, Iran

    Also written Śhabanį, Shábani, Shabānī

  • Albanian surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Albania, Kosovo, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Śhåbåñį, Shąbaņī, Shabanî, Shabànì

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Tanzania, United States, Iran, United Kingdom

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Shabānī

  • Persian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Iran, Tanzania, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Sha'Bani

  • Macedonian surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Slovenia, Tanzania, Kosovo, Switzerland

    Languages: Macedonian, Slovenian, Croatian

    Also written Шабани, Šabani, Śhábání

46 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)

192019401960198020002020Reza Shabani, b. 1938Nasser Shabani, b. 1957Mwanvua Shabani, b. 1964Ylli Shabani, b. 1982Agim Shabani, b. 1988Njomza Shabani, b. 1993Meritan Shabani, b. 1999Eniss Shabani, b. 2003

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 Mr Shabani,
InformalHi Shabani,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 36 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Shabani
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20243.3K#225
SI Sloveniastat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank)—249#1,669
TZ TanzaniaINEC Special Gazette 2021 — 2020 parliamentary election results20203#10
BI BurundiCENI — Liste nominative definitive des candidats deputes 202520251#19
CD Congo - KinshasaWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—1#420

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 Shabani mean, and where does it come from?
(surname) Borrowed from Persian شعبانی. Recorded by Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Shabani?
A machine transcription gives /ʃɑɓɑni/ (IPA) for Swahili.
In which country does Shabani have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 176 thousand people named Shabani in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shabani.
How common is the name Shabani?
In Switzerland, the national register counted 3,267 people named Shabani in 2024, about 1 in 2.6 thousand residents.
How common is Shabani compared with other names?
In Tanzania, Shabani is the 15th most common surname of 112,969 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Shabani?

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

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, “Shabani” — the 15th most common surname in Tanzania. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Shabani parses inside a full name →