Abner
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: from the male personal name Abner, from Hebrew Avner, literally “God is (my) light”
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/abneɾ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Abner is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- GTGuatemala≈1 in 1.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- HNHonduras≈1 in 5.2K
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 5.3K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 261 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.5K (inferred from the name graph)
26,092 people, 2022
Highest-authority source
Guatemala, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from the male personal name Abner, from Hebrew Avner, literally “God is (my) light”
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Abner is read(measured from records)
Abner 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.
- Spanish42%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Abner in Spanish.
- English26%
from the male personal name Abner, from Hebrew Avner, literally “God is (my) light”
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
A cousin of Saul mentioned in the Old Testament.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Portuguese19%
Abner (cousin of Saul)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Abner, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Abner 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | — | 26,092 | 1 in 8.1K | 26K | Abner | 135 |
| CN China | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 72K | — | Abner | 13 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.5K | — | Abner | 56 |
| GT Guatemala | #128 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Abner | 48 |
| US United States | — | 7,461 | 1 in 45K | 7.4K | Abner | 261 |
| PE Peru | — | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 7.6K | — | Abner | 61 |
| HN Honduras | #451 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 5.2K | — | Abner | 28 |
| SV El Salvador | #593 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | — | Abner | 21 |
26,092 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex. 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)
Abner 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.
A biblical name meaning 'father of light', historically associated with military strength and leadership.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Biblical name (meaning ‘father of light’ in Hebrew), of a relative of King Saul, who was in command of Saul’s army (x Samuel 14:50; 26:5). It is not common as a given name in England, but has enjoyed a steady, modest popularity in America, where it was brought in at the time of the earliest Puritan settlements.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
candle seller
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
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)
- Abner Nashb. 1740USAmerican politician (1740-1786)
- Abner Doubledayb. 1819USUnion Army general
- Hilary A. Herbertb. 1834USnot in their usual nameAmerican politician (1834-1919)
- Abner Bibermanb. 1909USAmerican actor, director, and screenwriter (1909–1977)
- Arnold Newmanb. 1918USnot in their usual nameAmerican photographer (1918–2006)
- Abner Shimonyb. 1928USAmerican physicist and philosopher of science (1928-2015)
- Jorge Drexlerb. 1964UYnot in their usual nameUruguayan singer-songwriter, musician, composer, and actor
- Abner Pastollb. 1982ZABritish film director
- Abner Teixeirab. 1996BRBrazilian boxer
- Abner Viníciusb. 2000BRBrazilian footballer (born 2000)
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 72 sources across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 5.6K | #6,143 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.3K | #6,145 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.1K | #6,223 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Abner mean, and where does it come from?
- from the male personal name Abner, from Hebrew Avner, literally “God is (my) light” Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Abner a male or female name?
- Abner 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.
- What are other forms of the name Abner?
- In the etymology graph, Avner is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Abner?
- A machine transcription gives /abneɾ/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Abner have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 26 thousand people named Abner, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled abner.
- How common is the name Abner?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 26,092 people named Abner in 2022, about 1 in 8.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Abner compared with other names?
- In Guatemala, Abner is the 128th most common given name of 22,774 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Abner?
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/abnerThe 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, “Abner” — the 128th most common given name in Guatemala. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.