Sandino
A Spanish masculine name derived from the Spanish surname Sandino.
Name Census estimates that about 5 living Americans carry the first name Sandino. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Sandino today is around 13 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Sandino births was 2013 (5 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Sandino. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Fewer than 100 living Americans are believed to carry the name Sandino. It is among the rarest names in the SSA records.
People living today
5
~ 1 in 68,550,868 Americans
Peak year
2013
5 babies that year
Average age
13
years old
2013 SSA rank
#13,708
Tracked since 2013
Census
Sandino in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 125 people with the first name Sandino, which placed it at #49,507 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#49,507
National first-name rank
People counted
125
125 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Hispanic or Latino
60.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Sandino
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sandino is Hispanic at 60.0%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and White (11.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Sandino described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Sandino at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Hispanic or Latino60.0% · 75
- Black or African American16.8% · 21
- White11.2% · 14
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.4% · 8
- American Indian and Alaska Native4.0% · 5
- Two or more races1.6% · 2
Popularity
Sandino: popularity over time
Babies born per year
Decades
Sandino by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Sandino during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
| Decade | Male | Female | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010s | 5 | 0 | 5 |
Origin
Meaning and history of Sandino
The name Sandino has its origins in the Spanish language and culture. It is believed to have emerged during the late Middle Ages, around the 15th century, in the Iberian Peninsula region of Spain and Portugal.
Sandino is thought to be a diminutive or nickname form derived from the Spanish name Alejandro, which itself traces back to the Ancient Greek name Alexandros. The prefix "San-" is likely a contraction of the Spanish word "santo" meaning "saint."
One of the earliest recorded instances of Sandino as a first name can be found in the writings of the 16th century Spanish chronicler and historian Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, who mentioned a man named Sandino in his accounts of the Spanish conquest of the Americas.
Perhaps the most famous individual to bear the name Sandino was Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino (1895-1934), the Nicaraguan revolutionary leader who led the resistance against the United States military occupation of Nicaragua in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Other notable historical figures with the first name Sandino include Sandino García (1953-2015), a Colombian journalist and writer; Sandino Mora (born 1941), a Costa Rican politician and former President of the Legislative Assembly; and Sandino Castellón (born 1954), a Nicaraguan artist and sculptor.
In literature, the name Sandino appears in the novel "El Señor Presidente" (The President) by the Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974), which is set during a fictionalized dictatorship in an unnamed Central American country and features a character named Sandino.
While not as widely used as some other Spanish names, Sandino has maintained a presence throughout the Spanish-speaking world, particularly in Latin America, where it has been associated with revolutionary and nationalist movements of the 20th century.
People
Sandino + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Sandino as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with S
Other first names starting with S with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Sandino: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Sandino?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 5 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Sandino going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 68,550,868 US residents.
Is Sandino a common name?
We classify Sandino as "Very Rare". It ranks above 18.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Sandino most popular?
The single biggest year for Sandino was 2013, when 5 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Sandino is about 13 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Sandino in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 125 people with the name Sandino, or 0.04 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #49,507 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Sandino in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Sandino?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Sandino appears almost entirely male. Of the 119 people counted with this name, 100.0% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Sandino?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Sandino is Hispanic at 60.0%. The next largest groups are Black (16.8%) and White (11.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Sandino most often in the Census?
Hispanic is the largest reported group for people named Sandino in the 2020 Census, accounting for 60.0% (75 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Sandino in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Sandino a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Sandino in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Sandino still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Sandino in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Sandino can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Sandino?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.