Themba
given name · Latin script
Meaning: aus Südafrika stammender wdbl
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ðɛmbə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Themba is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country, where it is the 54th most common given name.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 614(inferred from the name graph)
- SZEswatini≈1 in 1K
- MWMalawi≈1 in 3K
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
- 76 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 614 (inferred from the name graph)
≈92,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
aus Südafrika stammender wdbl.
Sources 1
- DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Themba 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 | #54 | ≈92,000 est. | ≈1 in 614 | listed | Themba | 75 |
| MW Malawi | #977 | ≈7,100 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Themba | 13 |
| ZW Zimbabwe | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 9.9K | — | Themba | 11 |
| SZ Eswatini | #26 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 1K | 31 | Themba | 6 |
| ZM Zambia | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Themba | 8 |
| BW Botswana | #178 | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | — | Themba | 8 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 14 | 1 in 1.2M | 14 | Themba | 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: the masakhane register; Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots; Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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)
Themba 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.
Hope.
as a nameThe African book of names
In Xhosa, to hope, to trust
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nr, to trust
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.
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)
Attested in 15 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SZ Eswatini | Eswatini EBC 2023 Secondary Elections candidate ballots | 2023 | 31 | #10 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 14 | #14,610 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 5 | #42,347 |
| ZA South Africa | MasakhaNER 2.0 — Zimbabwe (sna) | — | — | — |
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Themba mean, and where does it come from?
- aus Südafrika stammender wdbl. Recorded by DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen.
- How do you pronounce Themba?
- A machine transcription gives /ðɛmbə/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Themba a male or female name?
- Themba 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.
- In which country does Themba have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 92 thousand people named Themba in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled themba.
- How common is the name Themba?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 14 people named Themba, about 1 in 1.2 million residents.
- How common is Themba compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Themba is the 54th most common given name of 189,620 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Themba?
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/thembaThe 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, “Themba” — the 54th most common given name in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.