Valentine

surname · Latin script

Meaning: From the medieval personal name Valentine, from Latin Valentinus, a derivative of Valens, literally ‘brave one’

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

Valentine is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 7K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 8.2K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 11K

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 Valentine 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.

United States (measured from records)

40,395 people, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
489 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 4.7K (inferred from the name graph)

Jamaica, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ValentineLatin(measured from records)
발렌틴Hangul(measured from records)

Locally spelled Valentin in ES Spain.

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)

From the medieval personal name Valentine, from Latin Valentinus, a derivative of Valens, literally ‘brave one’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 23 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Valentine 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 Valentine is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#73540,3951 in 8.2K40KValentine489
NG Nigeria—≈19,000 est.≈1 in 11K—Valentine105
GB United Kingdom#668≈9,400 est.≈1 in 7K—Valentine216
ZA South Africa—≈5,200 est.≈1 in 11K—Valentine61
ES Spain—4,597as Valentin1 in 11K23KValentin39
DK Denmark—1,019as Valentin1 in 5.8K1K——
JM Jamaica#165≈590 est.≈1 in 4.7K—Valentine17
MD Moldova—≈520 est.≈1 in 6.4K15K—7

40,395 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); e-services.md — living population register; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)

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

  • French surname49 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, United Kingdom

    Also written Vãĺęñtįn, Vâlëntîn, Vãleñtiñ, Válèntìn, Vålēntin

  • Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Valentine'

  • Spanish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia

    Also written Valentíne, Valęñtįnę, Valentiné, V̶alentine, Välêntîne

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Valentinē, Valentīne

  • Spanish given name64 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, Mexico, United States, Peru

    Languages: Spanish, English, German

    Also written Valentin, Valentín, Valentìn, Վալենտին, Валентин

88 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Valentine 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.

  • In English, Latin ‘healthy’; used in Ireland, with Irish example Valentine Greatrakes, famed for healing scrofula by touch.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • , occasionally 2 English form of the Latin name Valentinus, a derivative of valens ‘healthy’, ‘strong’. This was the name of a Roman martyr of the 3rd century, whose feast is celebrated on 14 February. This was the date of a pagan fertility festival marking the first stirrings of spring, which has survived in an attenuated form under the patronage of the saint. Short form: Val.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • In English, An expression of affection, especially romantic affection, usually in the form of greeting card, gift, or message given the object of one's affection, especially on February 14th.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, saint; sweetheart; pers. name

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In French, Féminin de Valentinus, du latin valens, « forte, saine ». Fête: 14 février.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

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)

1850190019502000Howard Valentine, b. 1881Joseph A. Valentine, b. 1900Hilton Valentine, b. 1943Karen Valentine, b. 1947Scott Valentine, b. 1958Gary Valentine, b. 1961Steve Valentine, b. 1966James Valentine, b. 1978Angelina Valentine, b. 1986Denzel Valentine, b. 1993

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 102 sources across 56 countries.

Official registers attesting Valentine
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201040K#856
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202039K#872
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200038K#834
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—78#33,004
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—78#32,674

Reference works 5

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 Valentine mean, and where does it come from?
From the medieval personal name Valentine, from Latin Valentinus, a derivative of Valens, literally ‘brave one’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Valentine have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 40 thousand people named Valentine, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled valentine.
How common is the name Valentine?
In the United States, the national register counted 40,395 people named Valentine in 2010, about 1 in 8.2 thousand residents.
How common is Valentine compared with other names?
In the United States, Valentine is the 735th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Valentine?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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

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, “Valentine” — the 735th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Valentine parses inside a full name →