Modi
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Hindu (Bania, Vania), Jain, and Parsi name, from modi meaning ‘grocer’, ‘grain merchant’ in the various languages of this region
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈmoʊdi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Modi is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country.
- INIndia1 in 26K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 108K
- LALaos≈1 in 13K
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 Modi 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 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 304 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)
50,460 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Laos, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Mada in PK Pakistan and Meda in LA Laos.
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)
Hindu (Bania, Vania), Jain, and Parsi name, from modi meaning ‘grocer’, ‘grain merchant’ in the various languages of this region. There is a clan called Modi among the Oswal Banias.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Modi 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 | #504 | 50,460 | 1 in 26K | 50K | Modi | 259 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 39K | listed | Modi | 15 |
| US United States | — | 3,085 | 1 in 108K | 4.4K | Modi | 304 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 209K | listed | Mada | 18 |
| KE Kenya | — | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 61K | listed | Modi | 17 |
| LA Laos | — | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Meda | 4 |
| SE Sweden | — | 269as Madi | 1 in 38K | 269 | — | 13 |
| FI Finland | — | 123as Mod | 1 in 45K | 123 | — | 9 |
50,460 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Modi 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, plural of modus
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Indian surname meaning 'grocer' or 'trader'.
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
In Norwegian Nynorsk, indefinite plural of modus
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, inflection of modus:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, Pusaudži motociklisti, kas gk. pievērsa uzmanību savai ārienei (Anglijā, 20. gs. 60. gados)
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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)
- Sohrab Modib. 1897INIndian film actor, director, producer (1897-1984)
- Heeraben Modib. 1923INMother of Narendra Modi
- Narendra Modib. 1950INPrime Minister of India since 2014
- Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modib. 1952INSpouse of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi
- Syed Modib. 1962INbadminton player (1962–1988)
- Lalit Modib. 1963INIndian cricket administrator and businessman
- Nirav Modib. 1971INFugitive Indian businessman
- Hitesh Modib. 1971KEKenyan cricketer
- Virali Modib. 1991USAmerican disability rights activist, model, writer and motivational speaker based in India
- Avani ModiINIndian actress
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)
Attested in 31 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 50K | #310 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.4K | #7,257 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.1K | #10,429 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.9K | #14,544 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 1.8K | #2,087 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 16 | #42,809 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 15 | #31,409 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- Where does the name Modi come from?
- Hindu (Bania, Vania), Jain, and Parsi name, from modi meaning ‘grocer’, ‘grain merchant’ in the various languages of this region. There is a clan called Modi among the Oswal Banias. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Modi?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈmoʊdi/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- What does the name Modi mean?
- Recorded meaning: Hindu (Bania, Vania), Jain, and Parsi name, from modi meaning ‘grocer’, ‘grain merchant’ in the various languages of this region.
- In which country does Modi have the most bearers?
- In India, the national register counted about 50 thousand people named Modi, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled modi.
- How common is the name Modi?
- In India, the national register counted 50,460 people named Modi, about 1 in 26 thousand residents.
- How common is Modi compared with other names?
- In India, Modi is the 504th most common surname of 1,492,515 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Modi?
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/modiThe 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, “Modi” — the 504th most common surname in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.