MEANING & HISTORY
What does Rex mean?
Rex is the Latin noun for king, adopted as a personal name. Its meaning is unusually direct compared with names whose roots are hidden by centuries of sound change.
As a given name, Rex expresses the royal word without making its bearer the holder of a royal office. It has an established modern naming history of its own and need not be treated as a compulsory abbreviation of Reginald or another longer name.
References for this explanation
Pronunciation & syllables
Dictionary readings are kept by language. Select the reading that matches your intended pronunciation. Dots show the source’s written divisions; they are not a universal syllable count across languages.
Wiktionary contributors / Kaikki / Wiktextract · CC BY-SA 4.0
Origin and name formation
Language-specific accounts from the dictionary. A shared spelling can have more than one history.
CebuanoEtymology & source
From English Rex.
a male given name from English
EnglishEtymology & source
From Latin rēx (“king”). Doublet of rajah and roy.
A male given name from Latin coined in the nineteenth century from Latin rex "king," rarely given today.
Adapted from Wiktionary contributors via Kaikki/Wiktextract. Source accounts remain in their original English; editorial summaries and filters are adapted. Attribution and downloads
People with the name Rex
Public figures and other documented namesakes linked by an explicit given-name claim. This is a selection of records, not a popularity ranking.
DOCUMENTED NAMESAKE
Rexlon Gatchalian
Filipino politician; secretary of Social Welfare and Development since 2022
DOCUMENTED NAMESAKE
Rex Cullingham Ramirez
bishop of Naval in Philippines
The record establishes the name association, not the person’s intended meaning, pronunciation or ancestry. Descriptions are attributed to Wikidata contributors (CC0).
Use in Philippine-linked records
Public-record transcription
13
eligible source records · 2001
This spelling is reported in an openly licensed transcription of elected-candidate records. This is a record count, not a birth count or national popularity measure.
OpenHalalan / COMELEC ↗Wikidata
3
distinct person records with an explicit given-name claim
Community-edited coverage, not a census or birth registry. Examples: Rexlon Gatchalian, Rex Cullingham Ramirez
PSA · OFFICIAL BIRTH RECORDS
Rex in the birth records
Exact spelling and stated year in the published name tables. Read the counts as individual snapshots.
Tables included: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The 2016 fact sheet lists five names per sex; the later tables include ten. Missing counts are not inferred. Sex categories follow the official tables, independently of dictionary gender labels. Explore the official tables →
Similar names to Rex
Names with a similar opening or ending, ordered by spelling distance. Similar spelling does not imply the same meaning or origin.
Names in this collection
- Rea·Variant of Rhea or short form of Andrea
- Rey♂♀King
- Remo·Italian form of Remus
- Remy♂English form of Rémy: oarsman or rower
- Rene♂Unaccented form of René; reborn
- René♂Born again; French form of Renatus
- Recto·As a Spanish word: straight or upright
- Regis♂English Regis, associated with the French Régis name tradition
What rhymes with Rex?
Matches share a dictionary-supplied rhyme key in the stated language. Check the recorded reading; another language or accent can change the rhyme.
Recorded combinations with Rex
4 source-reported compound forms include this name as a component. Each part keeps its own history.
Names in this collection
- Rex Augustus·Rex: English given name from Latin king; Augustus: Latin name and title, exalted or venerable
- Rex Casiano·Rex: English given name from Latin king; Casiano: Latin Cassianus name derived from the Roman family name Cassius
- Rex Emmanuel·Rex: English given name from Latin king; Emmanuel: Hebrew God is with us
- Rex Romani·Source record
Explore Rex further
Follow the sources
- OpenHalalan — pinned 2001 COMELEC transcription (opens in a new tab)
Source-reported given-name form in a row with a separate explicit middle initial; ODbL-1.0.
- COMELEC — 2001 List of Elected Candidates (opens in a new tab)
Original document identified by the transcription; selected PDF entries were spot-checked, not every imported row.
- COMELEC — 2001 List of Elected Candidates (opens in a new tab)
Original document identified by the transcription; selected PDF entries were spot-checked, not every imported row.
- Wikidata given-name item Q1517287 — Rex (opens in a new tab)
Given-name identity, native labels, language associations and explicit class where present; not lexical meaning or population frequency.
- Wikidata — Rexlon Gatchalian (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q1517287 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wikidata — Rex Cullingham Ramirez (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name claim P735 linking to Q1517287 and citizenship claim P27 linking to Philippines Q928; community-edited evidence, not a civil-registry record.
- Wiktionary contributors — Rex (Cebuano) (opens in a new tab)
Explicit given-name sense and separately attributed etymology; no birth-frequency claim.
- Wiktionary contributors — Rex (English) (opens in a new tab)
Language-specific given-name etymology; shared spelling does not prove every bearer has this origin.
- Behind the Name — Rex (opens in a new tab)
Consulted account of the name’s formation, relevant root elements, or explicitly linked base name.