Samson

surname · Latin script

Meaning: From the biblical male personal name Samson, from Hebrew Shimshon, literally ‘little sun’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/sæmsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

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

rarermore common
  • TZTanzania≈1 in 709(inferred from the name graph)
  • NGNigeria≈1 in 1.1K
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.7K

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.

Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)

≈190,000 people, est.

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
417 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 709 (inferred from the name graph)

Tanzania, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SamsonLatin(measured from records)
ՍամսոնArmenian(measured from records)
სამსონGeorgian(measured from records)
স্যামসনBengali(measured from records)

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)

From the biblical male personal name Samson, from Hebrew Shimshon, literally ‘little sun’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Samson, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Samson 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 Samson is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
NG Nigeria#112≈190,000 est.≈1 in 1.1K—Samson131
TZ Tanzania#219≈83,000 est.≈1 in 709—Samson33
PH Philippines#128≈63,000 est.≈1 in 1.7K—Samson141
US United States—11,1231 in 30K12KSamson417
FR France—≈9,700 est.≈1 in 7K1.8K—5
KE Kenya—≈7,400 est.≈1 in 7.2K—Samson33

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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024). 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)

Samson is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Nigeria, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Samsón, Sãnsao, Sansăo, Sansào, Sañsão

  • French surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Canada, Philippines, United States

    Also written Samsõn, Sämson, Sàmson, Samsön, Samson︠

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Sāmson, Sámson

  • a separate surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Tanzania, Ethiopia

    Also written Sãmsön, Sầmsơn

  • Polish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Samson', Sámson, Šámšon, Šamšon

  • Swedish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Denmark, Tanzania, Nigeria

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Sämsön

71 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)

Samson 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.

  • Derived from the Hebrew root 'shemesh' (sun), meaning 'man of the sun', 'sun-child', or 'little sun'.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • Samson is often interpreted as a tragic hero whose physical might was compromised by moral weakness and lack of discipline. In Jewish tradition, he is a defender of Israel; in Christian typology, his sacrificial death and victory over enemies are sometimes viewed as a prefiguration of Jesus Christ.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • A male name of Hebrew origin associated with immense physical strength and solar imagery.

    as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database

  • In German, Toponymic surname from the house sign/name 'Samson' (simile of Samson wrestling the lion); bearer count 505; variants include Sam(p)son 460+22 and von Samson 23.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

  • In German, Toponymic house name; Type Samson; bearer count 505.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

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)

1700180019002000Deborah Sampson, b. 1760Joseph Isidore Samson, b. 1793Charles Rumney Samson, b. 1883Peter Samson, b. 1941Leela Samson, b. 1951Steven Bauer, b. 1956Polly Samson, b. 1962Savanna Samson, b. 1967John K. Samson, b. 1973Sidney Samson, b. 1981

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)

FormalDear Samson,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 127 sources across 62 countries.

Official registers attesting Samson
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202012K#2,944
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201011K#3,246
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200010K#3,265
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19911.3K—

Reference works 11

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 are other forms of the name Samson?
In the etymology graph, Sansone and Shamash are forms of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Samson mean, and where does it come from?
From the biblical male personal name Samson, from Hebrew Shimshon, literally ‘little sun’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Samson?
A machine transcription gives /sæmsən/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Samson have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 189 thousand people named Samson in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled samson.
How common is the name Samson?
In the United States, the national register counted 11,123 people named Samson in 2010, about 1 in 30 thousand residents.
How common is Samson compared with other names?
In Nigeria, Samson is the 112th most common surname of 346,007 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Samson?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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

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, “Samson” — the 112th most common surname in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Samson parses inside a full name →