Show
loc · Latin script
Meaning: v., ke, ge, kela = gela, hige; show respect, mbele-hou, kpia
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Show is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 130K(inferred from the name graph)
- PKPakistan≈1 in 1.1M
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 1.1M
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 Show 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 72 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 130K (inferred from the name graph)
667 named Sho, 2020
Highest-authority source
Malaysia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Sho in ES Spain, US United States, BD Bangladesh and Sow in MY Malaysia.
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)
v., ke, ge, kela = gela, hige; show respect, mbele-hou, kpia. I genea a-hgié, He showed himself to him. A ngi vulé gea nhgi ndéigésia, He made himself known to his brethren
Sources 1
- Vocabulary of the Mende Language
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Show 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 667as Sho | 1 in 499K | 3.2K | Sho | 32 |
| MY Malaysia | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 130K | — | Sow | 5 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 1.1M | — | Show | 9 |
| BD Bangladesh | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 1.1M | — | Sho | 9 |
| ES Spain | 64as Sow | 1 in 781K | 3.7K | Sho | 3 |
| SE Sweden | 11as Sho | 1 in 928K | 109 | — | — |
667 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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: INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Show 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 English, To display, to have somebody see (something).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Chinese, alternative form of 騷 /骚 (sou¹, “show”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Polish, show (large, impressive artistic and entertainment show of revue character with the participation of singers, dancers, circus performers, usually conducted by an anchorman)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Hungarian, show (entertainment, programme, production, performance)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, show; a play, dance, or other entertainment.
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)
- Vanessa Showb. 1945ARArgentine actress
- Eric Showb. 1956USbaseball player
- Grant Showb. 1962USactor
- Billy Snowb. 1979GBnot in their usual nameBritish actor
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 16 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.1K | #22,591 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 888 | #27,228 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 887 | #28,588 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- Where does the name Show come from?
- v., ke, ge, kela = gela, hige; show respect, mbele-hou, kpia. I genea a-hgié, He showed himself to him. A ngi vulé gea nhgi ndéigésia, He made himself known to his brethren Recorded by Vocabulary of the Mende Language.
- What does the name Show mean?
- Recorded meaning: v., ke, ge, kela = gela, hige; show respect, mbele-hou, kpia.
- In which country does Show have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 667 people named Sho, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Show?
- In the United States, the national register counted 667 people named Sho in 2020, about 1 in 499 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Show?
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/showThe 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, “Show”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.