Sonny
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Originally a nickname, from a pet form of the word son used as an affectionate term of address, but now sometimes used as a first name in its own right
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sʌni/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sonny is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- SESweden1 in 3.3K
- DKDenmark1 in 6.3K
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 Sonny 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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 457 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈69,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Originally a nickname, from a pet form of the word son used as an affectionate term of address, but now sometimes used as a first name in its own right. In communities of Italian origin, it is sometimes used as an English equivalent of Sandro. See Italian supplement.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sonny 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #368 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Sonny | 115 |
| CN China | — | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Sonny | 21 |
| US United States | — | 16,117as Sunny | 1 in 21K | 15K | Sonny | 457 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 18K | 1K | Sonny | 207 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 61K | — | Sonny | 45 |
| SE Sweden | #877 | 3,074 | 1 in 3.3K | 3.1K | Sonny | 69 |
| AL Albania | — | 1,718as Sanie | 1 in 1.8K | 1.7K | — | — |
| DK Denmark | #509 | 927 | 1 in 6.3K | 896 | Sonny | 81 |
| NZ New Zealand | #387 | ≈520 est. | ≈1 in 9.6K | 30 | Sonny | 76 |
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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); INSTAT Albania — Search the name (given-name counts); 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Sonny is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A familiar form of address for a boy.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Sonny är ursprungligen en amerikansk smekform bildad till ordet son ’son’ (jfr → Sune). Det har också föreslagits vara en engelsk smekform till namn som Saul och → Solomon. Sonny började användas som officiellt namn i USA på 1920-talet. Namnets popularitet ökade genom den amerikanska schlagern Sonny Boy, insjungen av bl.a. Al Jolson 1928.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In Danish, a male given name borrowed from English in the mid-twentieth century
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)
- Sonny Terryb. 1911USAmerican Piedmont blues musician (1911–1986)
- Sonny Stittb. 1924USAmerican jazz saxophonist (1924-1982)
- Sonny Buppb. 1928USAmerican actor (1928-2007)
- Sonny Listonb. 1930USAmerican boxer (c. 1930–1970)
- Sonny Perdueb. 1946USAmerican politician
- Sonny Silooyb. 1963NLDutch footballer and manager
- Sonny Bill Williamsb. 1985NZNew Zealand rugby league and rugby union player, and heavyweight boxer
- Sonny Weemsb. 1986USAmerican basketball player (born 1986)
- Sonny Colbrellib. 1990ITItalian cyclist
- Sonny Kittelb. 1993DEGerman association football player
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 83 sources across 49 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 15K | #1,864 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 3.1K | #820 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 1.9K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.1K | — |
| GB United Kingdom | ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024) | 2024 | 1K | #51 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 896 | #349 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 882 | #1,864 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 100 | #44 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 55 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 41 | #52 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 31 | #3,699 |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2025 | 30 | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 are other forms of the name Sonny?
- In the etymology graph, Sony and Sonnie are forms of the same name in other languages.
- What does the name Sonny mean, and where does it come from?
- Originally a nickname, from a pet form of the word son used as an affectionate term of address, but now sometimes used as a first name in its own right. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- Is Sonny a male or female name?
- Sonny is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Sonny have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 69 thousand people named Sonny in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sonny.
- How do you pronounce Sonny?
- A machine transcription gives /sʌni/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Sonny?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 3,074 people named Sonny, about 1 in 3.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Sonny compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Sonny is the 368th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sonny?
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/sonnyThe 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, “Sonny” — the 368th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.