Swart
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from ON svartr, OE sweart 'swarthy'; first attested Suenus, Mannius Suart 1066 DB (Sf)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/swɔɹt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Swart is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country, where it is the 81st most common surname.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- NLNetherlands1 in 4K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 40K
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.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 328 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈47,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from ON svartr, OE sweart 'swarthy'; first attested Suenus, Mannius Suart 1066 DB (Sf)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Swart is read(measured from records)
Swart is one spelling over 3 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.
- English76%
from ON svartr, OE sweart 'swarthy'; first attested Suenus, Mannius Suart 1066 DB (Sf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Of a dark hue; moderately black; swarthy; tawny.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Dutch7.2%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Swart in Dutch.
- Western Frisian5.1%
black
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Swart 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | #81 | ≈47,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Swart | 144 |
| US United States | — | 4,490 | 1 in 74K | 4.5K | Swart | 328 |
| NL Netherlands | #225 | 4,279 | 1 in 4K | 4.3K | Swart | 99 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 77K | 303 | Swart | 121 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 391K | — | Swart | 11 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈640 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Swart | 98 |
| GR Greece | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Swart | 7 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 33K | — | Swart | 35 |
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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)
Swart is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In enm, Dark, oppressive, blackened.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sco, Black or dark dyestuff.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In got, romanization of 𐍃𐍅𐌰𐍂𐍄
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Peter Swartb. 1752USAmerican politician (1752-1829)
- Charles Robberts Swartb. 1894ZASouth African politician (1894–1982)
- Sjaak Swartb. 1938NLDutch footballer
- Henda C. Swartb. 1939ZASouth African mathematician (1939–2016)
- Reine Swartb. 1950ZAWomen Actor Citizen of South Africa
- Jack Swartb. 1954NZNew Zealand racing cyclist
- Stephen Swartb. 1965NZNew Zealand racing cyclist
- Giselle Swartb. 1977ZASouth African tennis player
- Carla Swartb. 1987ZASouth African racing cyclist (1987–2011)
- Kaylin Swartb. 1994ZASouth African female goalkeeper
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 28 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.5K | #7,418 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 4.3K | #212 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.2K | #7,280 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.1K | #7,822 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 303 | #16,266 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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
- What does the name Swart mean, and where does it come from?
- from ON svartr, OE sweart 'swarthy'; first attested Suenus, Mannius Suart 1066 DB (Sf) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Swart?
- A machine transcription gives /swɔɹt/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Swart?
- In the etymology graph, Schwarz and Sward are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Swart have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 47 thousand people named Swart in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled swart.
- How common is the name Swart?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,490 people named Swart in 2010, about 1 in 74 thousand residents.
- How common is Swart compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Swart is the 81st most common surname of 285,788 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Swart?
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/swartThe 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, “Swart” — the 81st most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.