Velev
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/vɛɫɛv/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Velev is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Bulgaria than in any other country.
- BGBulgaria≈1 in 3K(inferred from the name graph)
- RSSerbia≈1 in 100K
- EEEstonia≈1 in 100K
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 Velev 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.
- Bulgaria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 88 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,300 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Bulgaria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Велев in RU Russia.
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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Velev 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BG Bulgaria | #163 | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 3K | — | Velev | 88 |
| RU Russia | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 932K | — | Велев | 15 |
| US United States | — | 112 | 1 in 3M | 112 | Velev | 68 |
| RS Serbia | — | ≈70 est. | ≈1 in 100K | — | Velev | 5 |
| ES Spain | — | 61 | 1 in 820K | 61 | Velev | 15 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈12 est. | ≈1 in 100K | listed | — | 1 |
| MK North Macedonia | — | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 191K | — | Velev | 4 |
| DK Denmark | — | 9 | 1 in 652K | 9 | — | — |
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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Velev is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Turkish, though
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)
- Velko Velevb. 1948BGBulgarian discus thrower
- Emil Velevb. 1962BGBulgarian footballer
- Orlin D. Velevb. 1963BGBulgarian chemical engineer
- Stefan Velevb. 1989BGBulgarian footballer
- Nikola VelevBGBulgarian film producer
- Orlin D. VelevUSresearcher
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 17 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 112 | #147,253 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 111 | #148,665 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 61 | #38,864 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 61 | #38,666 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 9 | #43,106 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- 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
- How do you pronounce Velev?
- A machine transcription gives /vɛɫɛv/ (IPA) for Bulgarian.
- In which country does Velev have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.3 thousand people named Velev in Bulgaria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled velev.
- How common is the name Velev?
- In the United States, the national register counted 112 people named Velev in 2010, about 1 in 3.0 million residents.
- How common is Velev compared with other names?
- In Bulgaria, Velev is the 163rd most common surname of 67,606 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Velev?
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/velevThe 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, “Velev” — the 163rd most common surname in Bulgaria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.