Rufo
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Portuguese: roll (the fast, light, uniform beating of a drum)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɹufoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Rufo is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 256K(measured from records)
- ESSpain1 in 21K
- UYUruguay1 in 87K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Spain (measured from records)
- Sources
- 223 (measured from records)
- 1 in 21K (inferred from the name graph)
2,439 people
Highest-authority source
Spain
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
roll (the fast, light, uniform beating of a drum)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
How Rufo is read(measured from records)
Rufo is one spelling over 3 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.
- English50%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Rufo in English.
- Spanish26%
Lat. Rufus, de russus: 'rojizo, pelirrojo'.
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
- Portuguese8.1%
roll (the fast, light, uniform beating of a drum)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Rufo 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | 2,439 | 1 in 21K | 2.4K | Rufo | 33 |
| BR Brazil | 1,649 | 1 in 128K | 1.6K | — | 2 |
| US United States | 1,301 | 1 in 256K | 1.3K | Rufo | 223 |
| CH Switzerland | 39 | 1 in 215K | 39 | Rufo | 5 |
| UY Uruguay | 39 | 1 in 87K | 39 | — | — |
2,439 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Rufo is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Italian, variante regional de Ruffo
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
Fulvo, dai capelli rossi
as a nameIl grande libro dei nomi per bebè. Significato, origini, curiosità. Oltre 7000 nomi per bambine e bambini Significato,…
In Latin, dative/ablative masculine/neuter singular of rūfus
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Galician, sound, healthy; lush
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)
- Juan Rufob. 1547ESSpanish writer
- Miguel Morenob. 1596ESnot in their usual nameSpanish writer
- José Rufob. 1726ESSpanish painter
- Marcel Rufob. 1944FRFrench pediatrician
- Eva Rufob. 1950ESSpanish actress
- Mauro Rufob. 1953ITItalian association football player
- Antonio Gómez Rufob. 1954ESSpanish writer
- Christopher Rufob. 1984USAmerican conservative activist (1984-)
- Robert RufoUSAmerican politician
- Giovanni Rufoagronomist
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 34 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 337 | #2,798 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 299 | #6,627 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 271 | #30,611 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 63 | #25,202 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 46 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 46 | #70,533 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 13 | #30,611 |
| UY Uruguay | Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012) | 1964 | 1 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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 Rufo mean, and where does it come from?
- roll (the fast, light, uniform beating of a drum) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Rufo?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɹufoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Rufo have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 2.4 thousand people named Rufo, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rufo.
- Where is Rufo most common?
- Rufo is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 21 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Rufo?
- In Spain, the national register counted 2,439 people named Rufo, about 1 in 21 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Rufo?
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/rufoThe 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, “Rufo”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.