Malle

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in French: smith, or nickname for a fierce fighter, from OF ma(i)l hammer (L malleus). 2

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

/ˈmæɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Malle is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country, where it is the 85th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • BDBangladesh≈1 in 560as Molla(inferred from the name graph)
  • ETEthiopia≈1 in 1.3Kas Molla
  • INIndia1 in 2.2Kas Molla

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 Malle 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.

India (measured from records)

590,154 named Molla

#485 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

3 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
190 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 49K (inferred from the name graph)

Denmark

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

MollaLatin(measured from records)
ሞላEthiopic(measured from records)
మలలTelugu(measured from records)

Locally spelled Molla in IN India, BD Bangladesh, US United States and 2 more and ሞላ in ET Ethiopia.

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)

pet-name for Mary; first attested Robertus filius Malle 1297 SRY

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 26 languages in the etymology graph.

How Malle is read(measured from records)

Malle 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.

  • Hindi27%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Malle in Hindi.

  • French24%

    smith, or nickname for a fierce fighter, from OF ma(i)l hammer (L malleus). 2. metonymic occupational name for a maker of bags or nickname for someone who habitually carried one, from OF male bag (of Gmc origin). Cpds: Malmberg (‘ore hill’); Malmborg (‘ore town’); Malmgren (‘ore branch’); Malmqvist (‘ore twig’); Malmsten (‘ore stone’); Malmstrom (‘ore river’).

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

    metonymic occupational name for a mail carrier or person in charge of baggage animals, from malle ‘baggage’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    large suitcase; trunk

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

  • English22%

    pet-name for Mary; first attested Robertus filius Malle 1297 SRY

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    Louis, French film director

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    Mallorca [Majorca]

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • Spanish5.6%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Malle in Spanish.

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)

Malle 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 Malle is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#85590,154as Molla1 in 2.2K590KMolla117
BD Bangladesh#32≈290,000 est.≈1 in 560—Molla102
ET Ethiopia#33≈86,000 est.≈1 in 1.3Klistedሞላ33
EC Ecuador—7,572as Malla1 in 2.2K7.6K—6
US United States—7,131as Moll1 in 47K7.1KMolla190
BH Bahrain#162≈650 est.≈1 in 2.3K—Molla7
DK Denmark—1201 in 49K763Molla13

590,154 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INEC — civil registry names; 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)

Malle is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Mali, Philippines

    Also written Mallé, Mallè, Mållë, Màlle, Mâlle

  • Estonian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Estonia, Nigeria, India

    Languages: Estonian, Finnish

    Also written Målle

  • French given name40 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Belgium

    Languages: French, English, German

    Also written Maelle, Maëlle, Maêlle, Mallé, Maélle

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Mallé

  • Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Peru, Venezuela

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Mallé, Mällë, Mallè

  • Danish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Sweden, United States

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Mallé

46 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19201940196019802000Louis Malle, b. 1932Vincent Malle, b. 1944Gunter Malle, b. 1960Frédéric Malle, b. 1962Anna Malle, b. 1967Justine Malle, b. 1974Mickaël Malle, b. 1982Chloe Malle, b. 1985Mirion Malle, b. 1992Nicolas Malle, b. 1998

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)

Formalआदरणीय Malle जी,Respected Malle ji, (English)
Informalनमस्ते Malle जी,Hi Malle, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 42 sources across 21 countries.

Reference works 7

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
  • Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

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

How do you pronounce Malle?
A machine transcription gives /ˈmæɫ/ (IPA) for Hindi.
What does the name Malle mean?
In French, smith, or nickname for a fierce fighter, from OF ma(i)l hammer (L malleus). 2.
Where does the name Malle come from?
pet-name for Mary; first attested Robertus filius Malle 1297 SRY Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
What are other forms of the name Malle?
In the etymology graph, Mora, May and Maia are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Malle have the most bearers?
In India, the national register counted about 590 thousand people named Molla, more than in any other country we hold.
Where is Malle most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Malle is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 49 thousand people — even though India holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Malle?
In Denmark, the national register counted 120 people named Malle, about 1 in 49 thousand residents.
How common is Malle compared with other names?
In India, Malle is the 85th most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Malle?

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

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, “Malle” — the 85th most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Malle parses inside a full name →