Ma
loc · Latin script
Meaning: from an honorific title home by a prince of the state of Zhao during the Warring States period (403-221 Bc)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ma is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In the Philippines it is the 13th most common given name.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 1.6K(inferred from the name graph)
- CNChina≈1 in 2.8K
- AEUnited Arab Emirates≈1 in 3.7K
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 Ma 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #688 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 457 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.6K (inferred from the name graph)
≈500,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Mae in PH Philippines, SG Singapore, CN China and 5 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)
from an honorific title home by a prince of the state of Zhao during the Warring States period (403-221 Bc). He was awarded the title Noble Ma Fu after repeatedly distinguishing himself as a general, and subsequently, his descendants adopted part of the honorific title, Ma, as their surname.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ma 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈500,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | — | Mae | 119 |
| PH Philippines | #13 | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.6K | — | Mae | 178 |
| US United States | #339 | 25,052as Mae | 1 in 13K | 38K | Ma | 457 |
| VN Vietnam | — | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.7K | listed | Mae | 34 |
| JP Japan | — | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.1K | — | Mae | 56 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | #351 | ≈2,700 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Mae | 67 |
| SG Singapore | #166 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Mae | 100 |
| QA Qatar | #303 | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 3.3K | — | Mae | 32 |
| NO Norway | — | 366 | 1 in 15K | 740 | Mae | 26 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Ma is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Initialism of moving average.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Russian, 15 (28) février. Maijoric est son équivalent français. Fête : 6 décembre.
as a nameRussian Names
unexplained.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In dag, 1. an improvement in < Hausa sauk’i ‘lightness’ anything, particularly in (also ‘cheapness’ &c. - root is sickness; a recovery 2. a reasonable price, meaning, a lower price
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
In Hungarian, today
as a wordEtymological Dictionary of Hungarian
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)
- Zheng Heb. 1371CNnot in their usual nameChinese mariner, explorer, and diplomat
- Ma Huanb. 1380CNMing dynasty translator, voyager and writer
- Ma Fuxiangb. 1876CNChinese politician (1876–1932)
- Ma Bufangb. 1903CNChinese politician (1903-1975)
- Ma Anand Sheelab. 1949INformer chief assistant for the Indian mystic Rajneesh
- Ma Ying-jeoub. 1950TW12th and 13th President of Republic of China(Taiwan)
- Yo-Yo Mab. 1955FRAmerican cellist (born 1955)
- Tzi Mab. 1962USHong Kong American actor
- Jack Mab. 1964CNChinese businessman
- Ma Huatengb. 1971CNChinese internet entrepreneur (1971-)
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 73 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 15K | #1,803 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.2K | #1,803 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 740 | #1,967 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 366 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2018 | 7 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2005 | 4 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2025 | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Ma mean, and where does it come from?
- from an honorific title home by a prince of the state of Zhao during the Warring States period (403-221 Bc). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How common is the name Ma?
- In Norway, the national register counted 366 people named Ma in 2025, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Ma compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Ma is the 13th most common given name of 486,299 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Ma have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 499 thousand people named Ma in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mae.
What do you want to know about Ma?
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/maThe 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, “Ma” — the 13th most common given name in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.