Zeljko
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Zeljko (eller Željko) är ett sydslaviskt namn bildat till ett verb som betyder ’önska, längta efter’ med det maskulina suffixet -ko
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/zəɫʒkoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zeljko is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Croatia than in any other country, where it is the 15th most common given name.
- HRCroatia1 in 112(measured from records)
- RSSerbia≈1 in 432
- BABosnia & Herzegovina≈1 in 1.1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Croatia (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 128 (measured from records)
- 1 in 112 (inferred from the name graph)
37,869 people, 2021
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Croatia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Željko in HR Croatia, RS Serbia, BA Bosnia & Herzegovina and 2 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)
Zeljko (eller Željko) är ett sydslaviskt namn bildat till ett verb som betyder ’önska, längta efter’ med det maskulina suffixet -ko.
Sources 1
- Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zeljko 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HR Croatia | #15 | 37,869 | 1 in 112 | 38K | Željko | 116 |
| RS Serbia | #44 | ≈16,000 est. | ≈1 in 432 | — | Željko | 68 |
| BA Bosnia & Herzegovina | #6 | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Željko | 38 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 528K | — | Zeljko | 7 |
| SI Slovenia | #285 | 1,955 | 1 in 1.1K | 2K | Željko | 26 |
| ME Montenegro | #22 | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | #7 | Željko | 31 |
37,869 people counted by DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form), 2021. 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: DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); SURS — resident population given names; the me-monstat-census register. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Željko Ražnatovićb. 1952SISerbian military commandant and criminal
- Željko Reinerb. 1953HRCroatian politician and physician
- Željko Ivanekb. 1957SISlovenian–American actor
- Željko Obradovićb. 1960RSSerbian basketball player and coach
- Željko Komšićb. 1964BABosnian Croat politician
- Željko Petrovićb. 1965MEMontenegrin association football player and manager
- Željko Milinovičb. 1969SISlovenian association football player
- Željko Joksimovićb. 1972RSSerbian singer-songwriter
- Željko Kalacb. 1972AUAustralian association football player
- Željko Rebračab. 1972RSSerbian basketball player (born 1972)
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 40 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ME Montenegro | MONSTAT — census names | 1976 | — | #7 |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- How do you pronounce Zeljko?
- A machine transcription gives /zəɫʒkoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Zeljko mean?
- Recorded meaning: Zeljko (eller Željko) är ett sydslaviskt namn bildat till ett verb som betyder ’önska, längta efter’ med det maskulina suffixet -ko.
- Is Zeljko a male or female name?
- Zeljko 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 Zeljko have the most bearers?
- In Croatia, the national register counted about 38 thousand people named Zeljko, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled željko.
- Where is Zeljko most common?
- Zeljko is densest in Croatia, where the national register counts about 1 in 112 people carrying it.
- How common is the name Zeljko?
- In Croatia, the national register counted 37,869 people named Zeljko in 2021, about 1 in 112 residents.
- How common is Zeljko compared with other names?
- In Croatia, Zeljko is the 15th most common given name of 14,066 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Zeljko?
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/zeljkoThe 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, “Zeljko” — the 15th most common given name in Croatia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.