Alfaro

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Spanish: ince of Logrono, apparently so called from the Arabic def. art. al + OSp. faro beacon (from LL farus, Gk pharos)

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Alfaro is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Costa Rica than in any other country, where it is the 19th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • CRCosta Rica1 in 99(measured from records)
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 191
  • CLChile≈1 in 967

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.

Costa Rica (measured from records)

51,549 people

#880 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

Sources
389 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 99 (inferred from the name graph)

Costa Rica

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

ince of Logrono, apparently so called from the Arabic def. art. al + OSp. faro beacon (from LL farus, Gk pharos).

Sources 1

  • A dictionary of surnames

How Alfaro is read(measured from records)

Alfaro is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • Spanish79%

    ince of Logrono, apparently so called from the Arabic def. art. al + OSp. faro beacon (from LL farus, Gk pharos).

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • English12%

    Eloy, Ecuadorian politician &

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    general; Ricardo Joaquin,

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

    Panamanian politician

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Alfaro 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 Alfaro is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CR Costa Rica#1951,5491 in 9952KAlfaro130
US United States—35,7251 in 9.3K36KAlfaro389
SV El Salvador#39≈34,000 est.≈1 in 19137KAlfaro87
PE Peru#123≈33,000 est.≈1 in 978—Alfaro107
PH Philippines#587≈20,000 est.≈1 in 5.6K—Alfaro72
CL Chile#128≈19,000 est.≈1 in 9671Alfaro117
UY Uruguay—2,5221 in 1.3K2.5K—47

51,549 people counted by TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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: El Salvador top-100 surnames (surnam.es / RNPN-derived); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)

Alfaro is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Canada, United Kingdom

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Alfáro, Alfaró, AlfäRô, Ąlfärö, Älfäro

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Philippines, Peru

    Also written Alfärò

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Álfaro, Alfáro, Al-Faro

  • Indonesian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, Peru, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Al-Faro

  • a separate surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Ecuador, Spain

    Also written Alfa̶r̶o, A̶l̶f̶a̶r̶o̶

  • Croatian surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Peru, Philippines

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian

    Also written Алфаро

  • Swedish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Sweden, Peru, Spain

    Languages: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish

    Also written Älfärö

  • Russian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Peru, Russia, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Альфаро

41 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)

Alfaro is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Cebuano, a surname from Spanish, the 503rd most common surname in the Philippines

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

  • In Latvian, pilsēta Spānijā (Alfaro), Larjohas autonomā apgabala austrumos

    as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)

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)

18001850190019502000Eloy Alfaro, b. 1842Ricardo Joaquín Alfaro Jované, b. 1882David Alfaro Siqueiros, b. 1896José Antonio Camacho, b. 1955Gustavo Alfaro, b. 1962Francisco López Alfaro, b. 1962Luis Alfaro, b. 1963Pablo Alfaro Armengot, b. 1969Enrique Alfaro Ramírez, b. 1973Alejandro Alfaro, b. 1986

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)

FormalEstimado/a Alfaro,Dear Alfaro, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Alfaro,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 43 sources across 26 countries.

Official registers attesting Alfaro
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—52K#34
SV El SalvadorEl Salvador top-100 surnames (surnam.es / RNPN-derived)—37K#39
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202036K#943
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201036K#975
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200024K#1,346
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—2.5K—
CR Costa RicaTSE — Consulta de nombres (Padrón Nacional Electoral name enumeration)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Alfaro?
A machine transcription gives /alfaɾo/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What does the name Alfaro mean, and where does it come from?
ince of Logrono, apparently so called from the Arabic def. art. al + OSp. faro beacon (from LL farus, Gk pharos). Recorded by A dictionary of surnames.
In which country does Alfaro have the most bearers?
In Costa Rica, the national register counted about 52 thousand people named Alfaro, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled alfaro.
Where is Alfaro most common?
Alfaro is densest in Costa Rica, where the national register counts about 1 in 99 people carrying it.
How common is the name Alfaro?
In Costa Rica, the national register counted 51,549 people named Alfaro, about 1 in 99 residents.
How common is Alfaro compared with other names?
In Costa Rica, Alfaro is the 19th most common surname of 8,899 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Alfaro?

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

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, “Alfaro” — the 19th most common surname in Costa Rica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Alfaro parses inside a full name →