Reuben
given name · Latin script
Meaning: From Hebrew male personal name Reuven, traditionally interpreted as ‘behold the son’; Ruben and Rubin were influenced by the word for ‘ruby’
A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 48 countries · latest register: SSA, 2025
/ˈɹu.bən/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Reuben is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- KEKenya≈1 in 1.4Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- TZTanzania≈1 in 3Kfew records
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 4.4K
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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 455 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈51,000 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)From Hebrew male personal name Reuven, traditionally interpreted as ‘behold the son’; Ruben and Rubin were influenced by the word for ‘ruby’.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Reuben, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Reuben 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #831 | ≈51,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Reuben | 73 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Reuben | 33 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Reuben | 26 |
| US United States | — | 17,061 | 1 in 19K | 17K | Reuben | 455 |
| ZA South Africa | #713 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Reuben | 69 |
| GY Guyana | — | 163 | 1 in 4.6K | 163 | — | 2 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)Reuben 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.
The name is derived from Hebrew, traditionally interpreted as 'Behold, a son!' (ra'ah ben) or linked to Leah's statement 'The Lord has seen my affliction' (ra'ah be'onyi).
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
A classic biblical name meaning 'behold, a son', symbolizing joy at a new birth.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Reuben represents the loss of preeminence due to sin, but also demonstrates themes of repentance and brotherly responsibility in Rabbinic and biblical tradition.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Hebrew; son, behold, a son; biblical name.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, First son of Jacob, by his wife Leah.
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)- Rube Goldbergb. 1883USnot in their usual nameAmerican cartoonist (1883–1970)
- Ruben Östlundb. 1974SEnot in their usual nameSwedish film director and screenwriter (born 1974)
- Ruben Fleischerb. 1974USnot in their usual nameAmerican film director
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)89 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 48 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Reuben mean, and where does it come from?
- From Hebrew male personal name Reuven, traditionally interpreted as ‘behold the son’; Ruben and Rubin were influenced by the word for ‘ruby’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Reuben?
- In the etymology graph, Ruben, Rubens and Rubén are forms of the same name in other languages; Rube is a recorded short or pet form.
- Which countries have the most people named Reuben?
- Mondonomo estimates about 51 thousand people named Reuben in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled reuben. After it come Kenya, Tanzania, United States and South Africa; the country table on this page ranks them.
- Is Reuben a male or female name?
- Reuben is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: United States (Census Bureau, 2020), United Kingdom (ONS, 2024), Australia (Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM), 2023) and Norway (SSB).
- How do you pronounce Reuben?
- It depends on the language: in English /ˈɹu.bən/ (Wiktionary); in Swahili /ɾɛuɓɛn/; in Spanish /reuβen/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- How common is the name Reuben?
- In the United States, the national register counted 17,061 people named Reuben in 2020, about 1 in 19 thousand residents.
- How common is Reuben compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Reuben is the 831st most common given name of 138,191 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Reuben?
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/reubenThe 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, “Reuben” — the 831st most common given name in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.