Mengesha
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Mengesha is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and Amharic, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Amharic መንገሻ (mängäša).
- USUnited States1 in 610K◐
- MEMontenegro1 in 12K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 216K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈916 ◐
- Sources
- 96 ●
- 1 in 12K ◐
across 12 countries
5.8K records
Official registry-verified
Montenegro
Meaning & origin●
Borrowed from Amharic መንገሻ (mängäša).
Sources 1
Where in the world●
Sorted by estimated bearers.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | ≈545 | 5.1K rec. | 1 in 610K | 1K | Mengesha | 96 |
| CA Canada | ≈72 | 147 rec. | 1 in 522K | — | Mengesha | 19 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈59 | 66 rec. | 1 in 951K | — | Mengesha | 5 |
| DE Germany | ≈58 | 76 rec. | 1 in 1.4M | — | Mengesha | 20 |
| ME Montenegro | ≈49 | 79 rec. | 1 in 12K | — | Mengesha | 1 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈45 | 164 rec. | 1 in 1.5M | — | Mengesha | 15 |
| CH Switzerland | ≈39 | 20 rec. | 1 in 216K | 38 | Mengesha | 9 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈18 | 28 rec. | 1 in 935K | 7 | Mengesha | 3 |
| AU Australia | ≈17 | 46 rec. | 1 in 1.5M | — | Mengesha | 8 |
| PH Philippines | ≈6 | 14 rec. | 1 in 17M | — | Mengesha | 1 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈5 | 6 rec. | 1 in 898K | — | Mengesha | 3 |
| BE Belgium | ≈3 | 9 rec. | 1 in 3.8M | 2 | Mengesha | 3 |
Roughly 545 people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 610K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English4.6K68%
- Amharic97114%
- Swedish4266%
- Arabic1803%
- German1723%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 4,648 | 68% |
| Amharic | 971 | 14% |
| Swedish | 426 | 6% |
| Arabic | 180 | 3% |
| German | 172 | 3% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Notable people with this name●
- Araya Mengeshab. 1989CACanadian actor
- Milkesa Mengeshab. 2000ETEthiopian athlete
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●
Attested in 18 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1K | #25,800 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 654 | #34,574 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 271 | #67,936 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 117 | #6,374 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 108 | #14,300 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 40 | #15,926 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 38 | #22,915 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 14 | #14,536 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 10 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 10 | #136,170 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 9 | #43,154 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 7 | #69,375 |
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 2026-09-03 data build · 26 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Mengesha?
- We estimate roughly 916 people bear Mengesha (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Mengesha have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 545 people bear Mengesha in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled mengesha.
- Where is Mengesha most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Mengesha is densest in Montenegro — about 1 in 12 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What does the name Mengesha mean?
- Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Amharic መንገሻ (mängäša).
Query this name via API
curl https://nelma-api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/mengeshaThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Mengesha”. Data snapshot 2026-08-31.