Bragg
loc · Latin script
Meaning: from a medieval nickname for a cheerful or lively person, from Middle English bragge
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Bragg is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 15K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 14K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 429 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
21,934 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a medieval nickname for a cheerful or lively person, from Middle English bragge
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bragg 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 | 21,934 | 1 in 15K | 22K | Bragg | 429 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈4,700 est. | ≈1 in 14K | listed | Bragg | 167 |
| CA Canada | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Bragg | 140 |
| RU Russia | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 464K | — | Bragg | 7 |
| ES Spain | 30 | 1 in 1.7M | 30 | — | 13 |
| CR Costa Rica | 19 | 1 in 268K | 19 | — | 1 |
| MO Macao | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Bragg | 1 |
21,934 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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)
Bragg 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, from ME bragge lively, gay, active (of unknown origin).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, Sir William H. & his son Sir W.
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Lawrence, English physicists
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, from ME brag(ge) 'brisk, lively, mettlesome'; first attested Walter Bragge 1243 AssSo
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Walter Bragge 1243 AssSo; Henry Brag 1260 AssC, 1275 RH (W). ME brag(ge) ‘brisk, lively, mettlesome’ (c1325 MED).
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
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)
- Thomas Braggb. 1810USAmerican governor and senator (1810–1872)
- Braxton Braggb. 1817USConfederate Army general (1817–1876)
- William Henry Braggb. 1862GBBritish scientist (1862–1942)
- William Lawrence Braggb. 1890GBAustralian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer
- Paul Braggb. 1895USnutritionist and author (1895-1976)
- Don Braggb. 1935USAmerican athletics competitor (1935–2019)
- Melvyn Braggb. 1939GBBritish broadcaster and author (born 1939)
- Billy Braggb. 1957GBEnglish singer-songwriter and left-wing political activist
- Alvin Braggb. 1973USAmerican lawyer and District Attorney of New York County (born 1973)
- Joey Braggb. 1996USAmerican actor and comedian
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 22 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 22K | #1,643 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 22K | #1,536 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 21K | #1,683 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 30 | #64,047 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 30 | #62,916 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 19 | #3,752 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of English Surnames (Reaney & Wilson, 1991) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname 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 does the name Bragg mean, and where does it come from?
- from a medieval nickname for a cheerful or lively person, from Middle English bragge Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Bragg have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 22 thousand people named Bragg, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bragg.
- How common is the name Bragg?
- In the United States, the national register counted 21,934 people named Bragg in 2010, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bragg?
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/braggThe 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, “Bragg”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.