Sunny
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Nigerian given name; shown with Sunny Ade as an example
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes
- France (INSEE, 2024): listed as male
- Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed under both sexes
- Brazil (IBGE): listed as female
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 35 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/sʌni/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sunny is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 5.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- IDIndonesia≈1 in 18K
- USUnited States1 in 21K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Sunny itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 324 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 922 (inferred from the name graph)
≈79,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Nigerian given name; shown with Sunny Ade as an example.
Cited for this meaning 1
- African Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sunny, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Sunny 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈79,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Sunny | 26 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈65,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | — | Sunny | 36 |
| BD Bangladesh | #787 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | — | Sunny | 70 |
| US United States | — | 16,117 | 1 in 21K | 11K | Sunny | 324 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 18K | listed | Sunny | 86 |
| FI Finland | — | 8,135as Sanni | 1 in 685 | 11K | — | 3 |
| HK Hong Kong | #445 | ≈7,900 est. | ≈1 in 922 | — | Sunny | 28 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Sunny | 39 |
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; DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)Sunny 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.
From the vocabulary word used to describe someone with a bright and cheerful personality (a derivative of sun, referring to the light and warmth provided by that heavenly body). Compare pSonny.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Featuring a lot of sunshine.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, cheerful
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Alegre
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
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)- Sunny Johnsonb. 1953USAmerican actress (1953-1984)
- Sunny Deolb. 1956INIndian actor and politician (born 1957)
- Sunny Chanb. 1967CNHong Kong actor
- Sunny Mabreyb. 1975USAmerican actress, model and comedian
- Sunny Sweeneyb. 1976USAmerican singer
- Sunny Laneb. 1980USAmerican pornographic actress
- Sunny Leoneb. 1981CAAmerican-Canadian actress, model and former pornographic actress
- Sunny Suwanmethanonb. 1981THThai actor
- Sunny Wangb. 1982TWTaiwanese actor
- Sunny Sandlerb. 2008USAmerican actress
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)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)68 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 35 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 860 | #29,300 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 579 | #38,265 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 371 | #52,500 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- Is Sunny a male or female name?
- Sunny is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: United States (Census Bureau, 2020): listed under both sexes; France (INSEE, 2024): listed as male; Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed under both sexes; Brazil (IBGE): listed as female. We don't publish a percentage split.
- What does the name Sunny mean, and where does it come from?
- Nigerian given name; shown with Sunny Ade as an example. Recorded by African Names.
- How common is the name Sunny?
- In the United States, the national register counted 16,117 people named Sunny in 2020, about 1 in 21 thousand residents.
- How common is Sunny compared with other names?
- In Hong Kong, Sunny is the 445th most common given name of 23,276 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Sunny?
- A machine transcription gives /sʌni/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Sunny have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 79 thousand people named Sunny in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sunny.
What do you want to know about Sunny?
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/sunnyThe 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, “Sunny” — the 445th most common given name in Hong Kong. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.