Bodo
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from the Germanic name stem bod-/bodo-, related to 'messenger'
A male name· listed as male by the registers that count names by sex
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 32 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/bɔdɔ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bodo is a male given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.2M
- CHSwitzerland≈1 in 32K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 187 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈32,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from the Germanic name stem bod-/bodo-, related to 'messenger'
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Bodo 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #426 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Bodo | 182 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈410 est. | ≈1 in 659K | — | Bodo | 36 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | — | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 687 | — | — |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 345K | — | Bodo | 18 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 32K | 33 | Bodo | 27 |
| US United States | — | 154 | 1 in 2.2M | 671 | Bodo | 187 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈83 est. | ≈1 in 106K | 16 | Bodo | 34 |
| SE Sweden | — | 72 | 1 in 142K | 72 | — | 11 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); 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)Bodo 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 German, ) Boto; Botho: alter deutscher männl. Vom., der auf altsächs. bodo »Gebie ter«, später umgedeutet zu ahd. boto »Bote«, zurückgeht. Zu Beginn des 19. Jh.s wurde der
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In English, lang., people, India
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, Aus dem Rufnamen Bodo/Bode < ahd. boto, as. bodo ‚Gebieter‘; patronymischer Familienname.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
Germanic: ‘messenger’.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
German: from an old Germanic personal name, originally a short form of various compound names containing the first element bod tidings, messenger.
as a word
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)- Bodo Ebhardtb. 1865DEGerman architect and castle explorer (1865–1945)
- Bodo Uhseb. 1904DEGerman politician and writer (1904-1963)
- Mahmoud Bodo Raschb. 1943DEGerman architect
- Bodo Tümmlerb. 1943DEGerman middle distance runner
- Bodo Wolfb. 1944DEGerman actor and voice actor (1944–2023)
- Bodo Kirchhoffb. 1948DEGerman writer
- Bodo Hombachb. 1952DEGerman politician
- Bodo Ramelowb. 1956DEGerman politician
- Bodo Schäferb. 1960DEGerman writer and speaker
- Bodo Illgnerb. 1967DEGerman footballer
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)61 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 687 | #746 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 671 | #35,964 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 636 | #35,395 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 614 | #34,799 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 20 | #36,564 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Bodo mean, and where does it come from?
- from the Germanic name stem bod-/bodo-, related to 'messenger' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Bodo?
- A machine transcription gives /bɔdɔ/ (IPA) for German.
- Is Bodo a male or female name?
- Bodo is a male name. National registers that list it by sex list it as male: United States (Census Bureau, 2020).
- In which country does Bodo have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 32 thousand people named Bodo in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bodo.
- How common is the name Bodo?
- In the United States, the national register counted 154 people named Bodo in 2020, about 1 in 2.2 million residents.
- How common is Bodo compared with other names?
- In Germany, Bodo is the 426th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bodo?
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/bodoThe 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, “Bodo” — the 426th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.