Dear
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a nickname based on dere ‘wild animal’ or the medieval personal name Dere ‘beloved’
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 21 countries · latest register: St Kitts & Nevis, 2026
Dear is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- KNSt. Kitts & Nevis1 in 27K(measured from records)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 32K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 39Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 301 (measured from records)
- 1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
3,677 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
St. Kitts & Nevis
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from a nickname based on dere ‘wild animal’ or the medieval personal name Dere ‘beloved’.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Dear 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 | 3,677 | 1 in 90K | 3.7K | Dear | 301 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 32K | listed | Dear | 175 |
| IN India | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 1.8M | 41 | Dear | 24 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈710 est. | ≈1 in 304K | — | Dear | 9 |
| IT Italy | ≈620 est. | ≈1 in 101K | 2 | Dear | 4 |
| AU Australia | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 44K | — | Dear | 101 |
| AT Austria | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 69K | 2 | Dear | 7 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Dear | 36 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | 2 | 1 in 27K | 2 | — | — |
3,677 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; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); the in-instate-surnames-bystate register; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)Dear 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, Deora, in part a short form of various cpd names with the first element dear dear, in part a byname meaning ‘Be¬ loved’. 2. nickname from ME dere, OE dear wild animal, or from the adj. of the same form, meaning ‘wild’, ‘fierce’.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, High in price; expensive.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, from OE Dēora or dēore 'beloved', or dēor 'deer'; first attested Goduine Dere c1095 Bury (Suffolk)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In ang, alternative form of dēor
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, to draw (design)
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)- Patrick Tse Yinb. 1936CNnot in their usual nameHong Kong actor (1936–2026)
- William Dearb. 1943CAfilm director
- Nick Dearb. 1955GBBritish writer for stage, screen and radio (born 1955)
- You Xieb. 1958DEnot in their usual nameChinese-German politician and writer
- Renhōb. 1967JPnot in their usual nameJapanese politician (born 1967)
- Xie Junb. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese chess player
- Tony Hsiehb. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican businessman (1973–2020)
- Nicholas Tseb. 1980CAnot in their usual nameHong Kong singer, actor, songwriter and chef (born 1980)
- Hsieh Su-weib. 1986TWnot in their usual nameTaiwanese female tennis player
- Sean Tseb. 1992GBnot in their usual nameHong Kong football player (born 1992)
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)Evidence
(measured from records)32 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.7K | #8,906 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.6K | #8,426 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.5K | #9,045 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 41 | #982 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026 | 2026 | 2 | #180 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| 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 Dear mean, and where does it come from?
- from a nickname based on dere ‘wild animal’ or the medieval personal name Dere ‘beloved’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Dear?
- In the etymology graph, Deere and Deare are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Dear have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.7 thousand people named Dear, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dear.
- Where is Dear most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Dear is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 27 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Dear?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,677 people named Dear in 2010, about 1 in 90 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Dear?
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/dearThe 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, “Dear”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.