Yadav
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Sanskrit: ‘descendant of Yadu’, an epithet of Krishna
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/jədəv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Yadav is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country. In Qatar it is the 5th most common surname.
- NPNepal1 in 25(measured from records)
- QAQatar≈1 in 192
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 394
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.
- Nepal (measured from records)
- #42 (measured from records)
- 6 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 342 (measured from records)
- 1 in 25 (inferred from the name graph)
1,228,581 people, 2021
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nepal
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)
Sanskrit: ‘descendant of Yadu’, an epithet of Krishna.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yadav 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | #962 | 1,228,581 | 1 in 25 | 1.2M | Yadav | 82 |
| IN India | #7 | 1,165,340 | 1 in 1.1K | 1.2M | Yadav | 342 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Yadav | 27 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | #22 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Yadav | 34 |
| CN China | — | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Yadav | 17 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #10 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 394 | — | Yadav | 77 |
| QA Qatar | #5 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 192 | — | Yadav | 29 |
| KW Kuwait | #35 | ≈5,300 est. | ≈1 in 560 | — | Yadav | 17 |
| BH Bahrain | #24 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 518 | — | Yadav | 16 |
1,228,581 people counted by NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only, 2021. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; NPHC 2021 — Population by caste/ethnicity group (national), surname-shaped categories only. 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)
Yadav is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A member of a grouping of traditionally non-elite, cow headers and peasant-pastoral grazing communities or castes in the Indian Subcontinent.
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)
- Sharad Yadavb. 1947INIndian politician (1947–2023)
- Ram Baran Yadavb. 1948NPformer President of Nepal
- Upendra Yadavb. 1960NPNepalese politician
- Akhilesh Yadavb. 1973IN20th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, India
- Pragya Yadavb. 1990SESwedish model, Actress
- Suryakumar Yadavb. 1990INIndian cricketer
- Manisha Yadavb. 1992INIndian actress
- Kuldeep Yadavb. 1994INIndian cricketer
- Elvish Yadavb. 1997INIndian YouTuber
- Rahul Yadav Chittaboinab. 1998INbadminton player
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 40 sources across 24 countries.
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Yadav mean, and where does it come from?
- Sanskrit: ‘descendant of Yadu’, an epithet of Krishna. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- How do you pronounce Yadav?
- A machine transcription gives /jədəv/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Yadav have the most bearers?
- In Nepal, the national register counted about 1.2 million people named Yadav, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yadav.
- Where is Yadav most common?
- Yadav is densest in Nepal, where the national register counts about 1 in 25 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Yadav?
- In Nepal, the national register counted 1,228,581 people named Yadav in 2021, about 1 in 25 residents.
- How common is Yadav compared with other names?
- In Nepal, Yadav is the 962nd most common surname of 25,881 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Yadav?
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/yadavThe 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, “Yadav” — the 962nd most common surname in Nepal. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.