Rue
loc · Latin script
Meaning: Greek; aromatic medicinal plant; see Ruth
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Rue is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 19Kas Ru(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 96Kas Ru
- DEGermany≈1 in 208Kas Ru
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 Rue 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 356 (measured from records)
- 1 in 375K (inferred from the name graph)
≈73,000 named Ru, est.
Highest-authority source
Guyana
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Ru in US United States, MY Malaysia, GB United Kingdom and 3 more.
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)
Greek; aromatic medicinal plant; see Ruth
Sources 1
- Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rue 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈73,000 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Ru | 36 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Ru | 38 |
| US United States | 1,026as Ru | 1 in 324K | 5K | Ru | 356 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 96K | 178 | Ru | 87 |
| DE Germany | ≈390 est. | ≈1 in 208K | 1 | Ru | 62 |
| SG Singapore | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Ru | 48 |
| SE Sweden | 157as Ru | 1 in 65K | 157 | — | 6 |
| GY Guyana | 2 | 1 in 375K | 3 | — | 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); the de-leipzig-vornamen register; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); 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)
Rue 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.
In French, street, road
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, second-person singular present active imperative of ruō
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In apb, two, used by itself or with _ro_, of phases of the moon
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In enm, A kind of plant belonging to the genus Ruta; rue.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
ISO 639-3 language code for Carpathian Rusyn.
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)
- Paul Rueb. 1866FRFrench painter
- Hilda Rue Wilkinson Brownb. 1894USAfrican American artist and teacher (1894-1981)
- Harald Rueb. 1895Danish literary critic (1895-1957)
- Danny La Rueb. 1927GBBritish entertainer (1927–2009)
- Rue McClanahanb. 1934USAmerican actress and comedian (1934-2010)
- Loyal Rueb. 1944USAmerican philosopher and writer (born 1944)
- Anders Kvåle Rueb. 1965NONorwegian illustrator and cartoonist
- Ruthann DeBonab. 1976USnot in their usual nameAmerican wrestling host
- Sara Rueb. 1979USAmerican actress
- Betsy Rueb. 1979USAmerican actress
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 40 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 590 | #14,395 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 229 | #14,395 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2024 | 188 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2023 | 184 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2022 | 183 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 169 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 49 | #13,876 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 10 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 10 | #333 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 3 | #397 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 2 | #592 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 1 | #2 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Rue mean, and where does it come from?
- Greek; aromatic medicinal plant; see Ruth Recorded by Baby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular….
- In which country does Rue have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 73 thousand people named Ru in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Rue most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Rue is densest in Guyana — about 1 in 375 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Rue?
- In Guyana, the national register counted 2 people named Rue in 2025, about 1 in 375 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rue?
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/rueThe 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, “Rue”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.