Gonçalves

surname · Latin script

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

Gonçalves is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 36th most common surname. Recorded meaning: an originally surname originating as a patronymic.

rarermore common
  • PTPortugal≈1 in 119(inferred from the name graph)
  • BRBrazil≈1 in 582
  • AOAngola≈1 in 1.2K

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.

Brazil (inferred from the name graph)

≈360,000 people, est.

#477 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

Sources
322 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 119 (inferred from the name graph)

Portugal, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Goncalves in BR Brazil, US United States, CH Switzerland and 1 more.

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)

an originally surname originating as a patronymic

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Gonçalves 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 Gonçalves is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#36≈360,000 est.≈1 in 5821.9KGoncalves232
PT Portugal#15≈87,000 est.≈1 in 119—Gonçalves186
AO Angola#27≈27,000 est.≈1 in 1.2K10Gonçalves43
FR France—≈27,000 est.≈1 in 2.5K3.8KGoncalves6
US United States—8,0001 in 42K9.7KGoncalves322
CH Switzerland#1245,6531 in 1.5K5.7KGoncalves73
UY Uruguay—2,2411 in 1.5K2.2K—1

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: IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)

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

  • French surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Portugal, Belgium

    Also written Goncalves, Gonçalvès, Goncalvès, Gonçalvés, Goncalvés

  • a separate name10 spellings in the group

    Also written Gonc̦alves, Gonc̈alves, Goņcalves, Gonçalvès, Goncalvès

  • English surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Goncalves, Gonçalvès, Gönçälvës, Gonçálves

  • Catalan surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Andorra

    Also written Goncalves

  • Hindi surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Spain

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Goncalves, Goncalvès, Gonçãlves

  • Arabic surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Spain

    Also written Goncalves

55 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)

Gonçalves is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • from Gonçalo

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

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)

120014001600180020002200João Gonçalves Zarco, b. 1390Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, b. 1888Vasco Gonçalves, b. 1922Tostão, b. 1947Affonso Gonçalves, b. 1967Aílton Gonçalves da Silva, b. 1973Manucho, b. 1983Jonas, b. 1984Pedro António Pereira Gonçalves, b. 1998João Neves, b. 2004

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 24 sources across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Gonçalves
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—1.9K#6,213

Reference works 4

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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

What does the name Gonçalves mean, and where does it come from?
an originally surname originating as a patronymic Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Gonçalves have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 364 thousand people named Gonçalves in Brazil, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled goncalves.
How common is the name Gonçalves?
In the United States, the national register counted 8,000 people named Gonçalves in 2010, about 1 in 42 thousand residents.
How common is Gonçalves compared with other names?
In Brazil, Gonçalves is the 36th most common surname of 424,864 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Gonçalves?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gon%C3%A7alves

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Gonçalves” — the 36th most common surname in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Gonçalves parses inside a full name →