Garcia

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in Spanish: abed ‘Precursor’, the traditional epithet of John the Baptist in the Armenian Church. medieval given name of uncertain origin

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

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

Garcia is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country, where it is the most common surname.

rarermore common
  • ESSpain1 in 35(measured from records)
  • NINicaragua≈1 in 42
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 49

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.

Spain (measured from records)

1,446,937 people

#17 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
617 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 35 (inferred from the name graph)

Spain

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

GarciaLatin(measured from records)
ГарсияCyrillic(measured from records)
การ์เซียThai(measured from records)
가르시아Hangul(measured from records)
ΓκαρσίαGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled García in GT Guatemala.

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(measured from records)

From a medieval Spanish and Portuguese personal name of uncertain origin, possibly related to Basque hartz/artz 'bear'.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.

How Garcia is read(measured from records)

Garcia 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.

  • Spanish67%

    abed ‘Precursor’, the traditional epithet of John the Baptist in the Armenian Church. medieval given name of uncertain origin. It is normally found in medieval records in the Latin form Garsea, and may well be of pre-Roman origin, perhaps akin to Basque (h)artz bear. Vars.: Garabetian, Karapetian. Vars.: Garci, Garza. Garabedian Armenian: patr. from the given name Gar-

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • English17%

    From a medieval Spanish and Portuguese personal name of uncertain origin, possibly related to Basque hartz/artz 'bear'.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

    A surname from Spanish of Spanish and Portuguese origin.

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

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)

Garcia 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 Garcia is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ES Spain#11,446,9371 in 351.4MGarcia347
US United States#81,166,1201 in 2851.2MGarcia617
CO Colombia#4≈520,000 est.≈1 in 946.4KGarcia247
PH Philippines#3≈490,000 est.≈1 in 223—Garcia202
VE Venezuela#5≈470,000 est.≈1 in 61—Garcia155
GT Guatemala#53≈300,000 est.≈1 in 57—García133
NI Nicaragua#2≈150,000 est.≈1 in 42892Garcia101
SV El Salvador#4≈130,000 est.≈1 in 49—Garcia117

1,446,937 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RNEC — Nombres más registrados (newborn name statistics); This page contains a database of popular Nicaraguan names and surnames categorized by gender and frequency, published by. 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)

Garcia is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Spain, Philippines

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written García, Garçia, Garcìa, Garcià, Gàrcia

  • a separate name17 spellings in the group

    Also written Garcïa, Garci-A, Garçia, Gárcia, Garcĭa

  • Turkish surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Peru, Türkiye

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written García, Gäŕçîä, Garçîa, Gârçîâ, Gãrçîa

  • Polish surname21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Czechia, Poland

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Croatian

    Also written García, Garsija, Garcìa, Гарсија, Gårcïå

  • Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Spain, Peru

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written García

  • Swedish surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, Denmark, Norway

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written García

94 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)

Garcia is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • from a medieval personal name of uncertain origin. It is normally found in medieval records in the Latin form Garsea, and may well be of pre-Roman origin, perhaps akin to Basque (h)artz ‘bear’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In Portuguese, communal leader in Venezuela; founder of Maguen Escudo; from Toledo/La Guardia/Amsterdam/Serfaty

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • In Italian, Variante di Garzia

    as a nameDizionario dei cognomi italiani

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)

18001850190019502000Benito Juárez, b. 1806Rubén Darío porno, b. 1867Federico García Lorca, b. 1898Alfonso García Robles, b. 1911José Feliciano, b. 1945Alan García, b. 1949Andy García, b. 1956Aimee Garcia, b. 1978Nikki Bella, b. 1983Radamel Falcao, 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 Garcia,Dear Garcia, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Garcia,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 80 sources across 41 countries.

Official registers attesting Garcia
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.4M#1
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.4M#1
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.2M#6
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.1M#6
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000858K#8
CO ColombiaColombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co)—305#5

Reference works 9

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

Where does the name Garcia come from?
From a medieval Spanish and Portuguese personal name of uncertain origin, possibly related to Basque hartz/artz 'bear'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Garcia?
A machine transcription gives /ɡarsja/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What does the name Garcia mean?
In Spanish, abed ‘Precursor’, the traditional epithet of John the Baptist in the Armenian Church. medieval given name of uncertain origin.
In which country does Garcia have the most bearers?
In Spain, the national register counted about 1.4 million people named Garcia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled garcia.
Where is Garcia most common?
Garcia is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 35 people carrying it.
How common is the name Garcia?
In Spain, the national register counted 1,446,937 people named Garcia, about 1 in 35 residents.
How common is Garcia compared with other names?
In Spain, Garcia is the most common surname of 395,154 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Garcia?

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

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, “Garcia” — the most common surname in Spain. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Garcia parses inside a full name →