Rab

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Czech rabuse 'notched tally stick'; also related to Slavic rab 'servant'

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 18 countries · latest register: DZS, 2021

Pronunciation:Explore pronunciation →

Rab is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bangladesh than in any other country.

  • BDBangladesh≈1 in 39Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
  • CZCzechia1 in 61K
  • HRCroatia1 in 103K

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.

Bangladesh (inferred from the name graph)

≈4,500 people, est.

Record sources
54 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 39K (inferred from the name graph)

Bangladesh, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

Czech rabuse 'notched tally stick'; also related to Slavic rab 'servant'

Cited for this meaning 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Rab 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.

Where Rab is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BD Bangladesh#581≈4,500 est.≈1 in 39K—Rab37
PK Pakistan#585≈2,300 est.≈1 in 107K1Rab54
US United States—3371 in 987K376Rab50
FR France—≈210 est.≈1 in 332K13—1
CZ Czechia—1761 in 61K176——
AE United Arab Emirates—≈170 est.≈1 in 63K—Rab1
HR Croatia—411 in 103K41——

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: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) — Form-33 List of Contesting Candidates, 2018 General Election; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; MVČR — living population register 2017; DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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 names spelled this way

(inferred from the name graph)

Rab is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Ráb, Råb

  • English surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Australia

    Also written Ŗäb, Řab, Räb, Rąb, Řãb

  • Russian surname31 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, Poland

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Croatian

    Also written Раб, Руб, Ромб, Rub, Ráb

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Algeria

    Also written Řāb, Ràb, Rāb, Råb

  • German surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Austria, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Ráb

57 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses

(measured from records)

Rab 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 Arabic, lord, master. One of the names of Allah

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

  • In Hungarian, prisoner

    as a wordEtymological Dictionary of Hungarian

  • In Indonesian, initialism of rencana anggaran belanja (“budget estimate plan”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In French, rest, remainder, leftovers, extra food; (especially) in a canteen, where using which, one can ask for some extra food from the cook or canteen service

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In mww, classifier for implements tools, utensils, i.e. for things with a handle and used with the hands

    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)
1850190019502000István Rab, b. 1886Gusztáv Rab, b. 1901Zsuzsa Rab, b. 1926István Rab, b. 1930Jan Rab, b. 1943Károly Rab, b. 1944János Rab, b. 1945Tibor Rab, b. 1955Sara Youcha Goldrick-Rab, b. 1977

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)
Formalمحترم Rab صاحب،Dear Mr Rab, (English)
Informalہیلو Rab،Hi Rab, (English)

Evidence

(measured from records)

37 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 18 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What are other forms of the name Rab?
In the etymology graph, Roberts, Berto and Brecht are forms of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Rab mean, and where does it come from?
Czech rabuse 'notched tally stick'; also related to Slavic rab 'servant' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
In which country does Rab have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 4.5 thousand people named Rab in Bangladesh, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rab.
How common is the name Rab?
In the United States, the national register counted 337 people named Rab in 2010, about 1 in 987 thousand residents.
How common is Rab compared with other names?
In Bangladesh, Rab is the 581st most common surname of 12,312 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/rab

The 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, “Rab” — the 581st most common surname in Bangladesh. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Rab parses inside a full name →