Urbanus
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Urbanus's inclusion in Paul's greetings emphasizes the importance of every member in the body of Christ and the value of collaborative partnership in ministry, regardless of an individual's prominence
Used for both men and women, depending on the country· national registers that list names by sex disagree
- Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as male
- Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 13 countries · latest register: CBG Familienamenbank, 2007
/uɾɓanus/(machine-generated) Swahili · model-generated
Urbanus is a given name used for both men and women, depending on the country, written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Kenya than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 118K(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 464K
- NGNigeria≈1 in 490Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Kenya (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 91 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 21K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,700 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Kenya, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Urbanus's inclusion in Paul's greetings emphasizes the importance of every member in the body of Christ and the value of collaborative partnership in ministry, regardless of an individual's prominence. His legacy represents the many faithful but largely anonymous individuals who were foundational to the early church's growth.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Urbanus 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KE Kenya | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Urbanus | 4 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈480 est. | ≈1 in 490K | — | Urbanus | 11 |
| IN India | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 8.3M | 1 | Urbanus | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | 146 | 1 in 118K | 155 | Urbanus | 21 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 628K | — | Urbanus | 5 |
| FI Finland | 12 | 1 in 464K | 85 | — | — |
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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls). 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)Urbanus is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
A classic Latin name meaning "refined" or "from the city," Urbanus has a dignified and historical feel. In the New Testament, Urbanus was a respected coworker of the Apostle Paul, making the name a choice with deep roots in Christian history for parents seeking a unique and sophisticated name.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
The name Urbanus is Latin, meaning "of the city," "city-dweller," or "refined." It reflects the Roman cultural idea that city inhabitants were more sophisticated than those from rural areas.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, Lat. 'townish, urbane'; from St. Urban
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, Patronymischer Familienname zu Rufname Urbanus; 813 Bearer.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
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)- Urban IIb. 1035FRnot in their usual name11th century pope and initiator of the Crusades
- Urban IVb. 1185FRnot in their usual nameHead of the Catholic Church from 1261 to 1264 (1185–1264)
- Urban IIIb. 1200ITnot in their usual namepope (1185–1187)
- Urban Vb. 1310FRnot in their usual namepope of the Catholic Church from 1362 to 1370
- Urban VIb. 1318ITnot in their usual namepope of the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1389 (1318–1389)
- Urbanus Rhegiusb. 1489DEGerman theologian
- Urban VIIb. 1521ITnot in their usual namepope of the Catholic Church in September 1590
- Urban VIIIb. 1568FRnot in their usual name235 pope of the Catholic Church from 1623 to 1644 (1568–1644)
- U. E. Baughmanb. 1905USnot in their usual nameSecret Service Chief (1905–1978)
- Urban IITnot in their usual name3rd‑century Roman bishop of Rome, Catholic saint, pope during the reign of Alexander Severus
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)23 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 155 | #13,208 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 30 | #38,603 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- What does the name Urbanus mean, and where does it come from?
- Urbanus's inclusion in Paul's greetings emphasizes the importance of every member in the body of Christ and the value of collaborative partnership in ministry, regardless of an individual's prominence… Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- What are other forms of the name Urbanus?
- In the etymology graph, Panu is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Urbanus?
- It depends on the language: in Swahili /uɾɓanus/; in Indonesian /urbˈanus/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- Is Urbanus a male or female name?
- Urbanus is used for both men and women, depending on the country. National registers that list names by sex disagree: Netherlands (Meertens NVB): listed as male; Finland (DVV): listed under both sexes. We don't publish a percentage split.
- In which country does Urbanus have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.7 thousand people named Urbanus in Kenya, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled urbanus.
- How common is the name Urbanus?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 146 people named Urbanus, about 1 in 118 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Urbanus?
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/urbanusThe 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, “Urbanus”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.