Flu
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Influenza
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries · latest register: INSEE, 1991
/ˈfɫu/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Flu is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 266K(measured from records)
- ATAustria≈1 in 830K
- FRFrance≈1 in 1.2M
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Flu itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- India (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 78 (measured from records)
- 1 in 266K (inferred from the name graph)
≈110 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Flue in US United States, CH Switzerland, GY Guyana.
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)Influenza.
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Flu is read
(measured from records)Flu is one spelling over 4 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.
- English40%
Influenza.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French24%
diarrhea
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish7.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Flu in Spanish.
- German5.9%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Flu in German.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Flu 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 12M | — | Flu | 2 |
| US United States | ≈82 est. | ≈1 in 4.1M | listed | FLue | 78 |
| CH Switzerland | ≈72 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | FLue | 14 |
| NL Netherlands | 65 | 1 in 266K | 65 | Flu | 10 |
| FR France | ≈56 est. | ≈1 in 1.2M | 10 | Flu | 59 |
| GY Guyana | 40as Flue | 1 in 19K | 40 | FLue | 1 |
| AT Austria | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 830K | — | Flu | 3 |
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: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)Flu is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Norwegian Nynorsk, bait that is strewn out over the surface to attract fish
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Turkish, fuzzy
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, brelan; fluide
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
In Romanian, FLU adj. invar., s. n. 1. Adj. invar. (Despre îmbrăcăminte) Vaporos. 2. Adj. invar. (Despre imagini) Cu contururi imprecise, estompate. 3. S. n. Efect fotografic care dă evanescență contururilor. [Scris și: flou].
as a wordDEX online (dexonline.ro) - DEX '96 / DEX '98 definitions with etymology
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)- Paul Flub. 1884NLDutch university teacher (1884-1945)
- Ron Flub. 1934CNChinese architect and painter (born 1934)
- Merlin Flub. 1948DEGerman painter (1948-2015)
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)5 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 65 | #26,095 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 10 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 6 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 2 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 2 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 2 | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Flu mean, and where does it come from?
- Influenza. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Flu?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈfɫu/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Flu have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 110 people named Flu in India, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled flu.
- Where is Flu most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Flu is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 266 thousand people — even though India holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Flu?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 65 people named Flu in 2007, about 1 in 266 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Flu?
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/fluThe 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, “Flu”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.