Sheîkh

given name · Latin script

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

Sheîkh is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country, where it is the 22nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: A Muslim surname based on Arabic shaikh ‘political or spiritual leader’.

rarermore common
  • BDBangladesh≈1 in 441(inferred from the name graph)
  • PKPakistan≈1 in 559
  • INIndia1 in 517as Sekh

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 Sheîkh 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)

2,562,935 named Sekh

#130 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

7 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
319 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 441 (inferred from the name graph)

Bangladesh, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

ShaikhLatin(measured from records)
শেখBengali(measured from records)
เช็คThai(measured from records)
ΣεχGreek(measured from records)
ਸੁੱਖGurmukhi(measured from records)
ഷെയഖMalayalam(measured from records)
షకTelugu(measured from records)

4 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Shaikh in IN India, AE United Arab Emirates, ID Indonesia, Sheikh in PK Pakistan, BD Bangladesh and Sekh in SA Saudi Arabia, KW Kuwait.

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)

A Muslim surname based on Arabic shaikh ‘political or spiritual leader’.

Sources 3

  • Whats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names
  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
  • Nordic Names

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Sheîkh 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 Sheîkh is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#222,562,935as Sekh1 in 5172.6MShaikh275
PK Pakistan#76≈420,000 est.≈1 in 5591Sheikh140
BD Bangladesh#25≈370,000 est.≈1 in 441listedSheikh134
SA Saudi Arabia#254≈24,000 est.≈1 in 1.4KlistedSekh36
ID Indonesia—≈17,000 est.≈1 in 16K—Shaikh31
AE United Arab Emirates#217≈11,000 est.≈1 in 886—Shaikh54
KW Kuwait#302≈3,700 est.≈1 in 812—Sekh11
NO Norway—7841 in 7K784—14

2,562,935 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls, counting the spelling sekh. 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; Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)

Sheîkh is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Italian surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States, United Kingdom, India

    Also written Sheikh, Šhèikh, Shèîkh, Shëïkh

  • German surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Austria, United Kingdom

    Also written Sheikh, Shếikh, Šhęįķh, Šhěìķh

1 further group 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.

Evidence(measured from records)

No register attests this spelling yet

None of the official registers or reference works in our corpus lists Sheîkh under this spelling. The statistics on this page rest on person records, and the related names are inferred from the name graph.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Sheîkh mean, and where does it come from?
A Muslim surname based on Arabic shaikh ‘political or spiritual leader’. Recorded by Whats in a name = Unaitwaje a Swahili book of names and Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history] and 1 other source.
Is Sheîkh a male or female name?
Sheîkh is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
In which country does Sheîkh have the most bearers?
In India, the national register counted about 2.6 million people named Sekh, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Sheîkh?
In Norway, the national register counted 784 people named Sheîkh, about 1 in 7.0 thousand residents.
How common is Sheîkh compared with other names?
In India, Sheîkh is the 22nd most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Sheîkh?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/she%C3%AEkh

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, “Sheîkh” — the 22nd most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Sheîkh parses inside a full name →