Bava
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈbɑvə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bava is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From Vulgar Latin root *baba, of infantile/nursery origin.
- INIndia1 in 4.1M(measured from records)
- UYUruguay1 in 24K
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 35K
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.
- Argentina (measured from records)
- Sources
- 81 (measured from records)
- 1 in 24K (inferred from the name graph)
901 people
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From Vulgar Latin root *baba, of infantile/nursery origin.
Sources 2
- Wiktionary
- Skok, Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (1971-74)
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bava 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | 901 | 1 in 50K | 901 | — | — |
| PK Pakistan | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 262K | — | Bava | 5 |
| IT Italy | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 71K | listed | Bava | 9 |
| US United States | 338 | 1 in 984K | 398 | Bava | 68 |
| IN India | 321 | 1 in 4.1M | 321 | Bava | 81 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | Bava | 1 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 198K | — | Bava | 6 |
| UY Uruguay | 139 | 1 in 24K | 139 | — | — |
901 people counted by RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Bava is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, third-person singular past historic of baver
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fj, washstrake or upper planks of canoe
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In mbb, to carry (baby on back)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In dru, alcoholic beverage
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mbb, carry on the back
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Catalan, slobber, drool
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)
- Eusebio Bavab. 1790ITItalian general
- Fiorenzo Bava-Beccarisb. 1831ITItalian general (1831-1924)
- Eugenio Bavab. 1886ITItalian cinematographer
- Nunzio Bavab. 1906ITItalian painter (1906-1994)
- Mario Bavab. 1914ITItalian filmmaker, screenwriter, special effects artist and cinematographer (1914–1980)
- Lamberto Bavab. 1944ITItalian film director
- Jorge Bavab. 1981UYUruguayan footballer
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 25 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | India Names Dataset — Andhra Pradesh Electoral Rolls (Internet Archive) | — | 507 | #5,103 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 does the name Bava mean, and where does it come from?
- From Vulgar Latin root *baba, of infantile/nursery origin. Recorded by Wiktionary and Skok, Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (1971-74).
- How do you pronounce Bava?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbɑvə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- In which country does Bava have the most bearers?
- In Argentina, the national register counted about 901 people named Bava, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Bava most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Bava is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 24 thousand people — even though Argentina holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Bava?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 901 people named Bava, about 1 in 50 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bava?
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/bavaThe 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, “Bava”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.