Dela
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Dela is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country, where it is the most common surname.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 129(inferred from the name graph)
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 2.6K
- BRBrazil1 in 47K
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 Dela 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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- #487 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 341 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 129 (inferred from the name graph)
≈850,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Dula in XK Kosovo.
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.
Sources 1
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Dela 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #1 | ≈850,000 est. | ≈1 in 129 | listed | Dela | 204 |
| US United States | — | 72,109as Delacruz | 1 in 4.6K | 76K | Dela | 341 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | #921 | ≈4,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.4K | — | Dela | 20 |
| BR Brazil | — | 4,520 | 1 in 47K | 4.5K | Dela | 87 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #133 | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.6K | — | Dela | 69 |
| QA Qatar | #172 | ≈870 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Dela | 30 |
| XK Kosovo | #767 | ≈580 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | 444 | Dula | 4 |
| BH Bahrain | #245 | ≈410 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Dela | 22 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); ASK Kosovo — Kërko Emrin (Name Search). 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)
Dela 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 Filipino, particle found in Spanish-derived surnames when originally spelled with de la, such as dela Cruz (from earlier de la Cruz
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Cebuano, of the, from the (only in names with Spanish origins or in phrases with Spanish construction)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, to deal, share; divide something between recipients
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Portuguese, contraction of de ela: feminine singular of dele
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ang, nominative/accusative/genitive plural of delu
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Spanish, of the, from the (followed by feminine noun)
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)
- Maurice Delab. 1919CACanadian composer (1919–1978)
- Sebastian Delab. 1996PLPolish actor
- Flemming DelaDKresearcher
- Jocelyn Dela-CruzAUAustralian scientist
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 53 sources across 30 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 4.5K | #2,432 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.6K | #8,798 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 762 | #30,600 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 227 | #78,326 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- In which country does Dela have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 848 thousand people named Dela in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled dela.
- How common is the name Dela?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 4,520 people named Dela, about 1 in 47 thousand residents.
- How common is Dela compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Dela is the most common surname of 876,464 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Dela?
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/delaThe 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, “Dela” — the most common surname in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.