Valerian
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Valerian is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Tanzania than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Forme de Valerianus, du latin valere, « être fort ».
- FRFrance≈1 in 48K(inferred from the name graph)
- GEGeorgia1 in 1.4Kas ვალერიან
- MDMoldova1 in 2.7K
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 Valerian 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.
- Tanzania (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 200 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.7K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Moldova
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Forme de Valerianus, du latin valere, « être fort ».
Sources 1
- Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Valerian is read(measured from records)
Valerian is one spelling over 4 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.
- French23%
Forme de Valerianus, du latin valere, « être fort ».
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
- English17%
Roman emperor
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Latin, from Valerius; strong, healthy
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
- Georgian16%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Valerian in Georgian.
- Ukrainian6.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Valerian in Ukrainian.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Valerian 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.
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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Georgia PSDA/SDA civil-registry name statistics (per-token API); e-services.md — living population 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)
Valerian 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 Italian, redução dialetal set. de Valeriano
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Latin, Latin/Catholic: 'to be strong, valiant'
as a nameAfrican Names
In Russian, "strong."
as a wordA Dictionary of Period Russian Names (Wickenden / Goldschmidt 1996)
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)
- Valerian Zubovb. 1771RURussian general (1771-1804)
- Valerian Albanovb. 1882RURussian navigator (1882–1919)
- Valerian Osinskib. 1887RURussian politician (1887-1938)
- Valerian Kuybyshevb. 1888RUSoviet politician (1888-1935)
- Valerian Gaprindashvilib. 1888GEGeorgian poet (1888–1941)
- Valerian Frolovb. 1895RUSoviet general (1895–1961)
- Valerian Abakovskyb. 1895LVRussian inventor (1895-1921)
- Valerian Zorinb. 1902RUSoviet diplomat (1902-1986)
- Lars Ahlforsb. 1907FInot in their usual nameFinnish mathematician (1907-1996)
- Valerian Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellingtonb. 1915GBsenior British peer and retired Brigadier in the British Army (1915-2014)
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 59 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 18 | — |
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 Valerian mean?
- Recorded meaning: Forme de Valerianus, du latin valere, « être fort ».
- Is Valerian a male or female name?
- Valerian 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 Valerian have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.0 thousand people named Valerian in Tanzania, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled valerian.
- Where is Valerian most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Valerian is densest in Moldova — about 1 in 2.7 thousand people — even though Tanzania holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Valerian?
- In the etymology graph, Walerian, Валериана and Valerianus are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Valerian?
- In Moldova, the national register counted 1,234 people named Valerian, about 1 in 2.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Valerian compared with other names?
- In Georgia, Valerian is the 159th most common given name of 12,900 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Valerian?
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/valerianThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Valerian” — the 159th most common given name in Georgia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.