Bala
surname · Latin script
Meaning: , 2 Sanskrit: ‘young’, often used in compound epithets of Krishna
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/bala/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bala is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country.
- NGNigeria≈1 in 717(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 4.1K
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 5K
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 Bala 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.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 260 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 717 (inferred from the name graph)
≈300,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nigeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Bal in US United States, TR Türkiye and Balu in IN India.
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)
, 2 Sanskrit: ‘young’, often used in compound epithets of Krishna.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bala 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | #458 | ≈300,000 est. | ≈1 in 717 | listed | Bala | 46 |
| US United States | — | 220,599as Bell | 1 in 1.5K | 267K | Bal | 260 |
| TR Türkiye | — | ≈72,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Bal | 49 |
| IN India | #278 | 51,870 | 1 in 26K | 52K | Balu | 218 |
| BD Bangladesh | #148 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 5K | — | Bala | 54 |
| SG Singapore | #427 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.1K | — | Bala | 50 |
| XK Kosovo | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 1.8K | — | 6 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; 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)
Bala 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, A small town and community with a town council in Gwynedd, Wales (OS grid ref SH9235).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
name of many men (P); Balarama (N); Hanuman
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
In English, lake, Wales
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, slaw. Patronym zu Rufname Balthasar; 102 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In English, Sanskrit; a young girl
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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)
- Athanase Balab. 1927CMCameroonian Roman catholic bishop
- Thumma Balab. 1944INIndian Roman Catholic priest (1944–2024)
- Iwan Balab. 1956GBWelsh artist (born 1956)
- Krystian Balab. 1973PLPolish writer
- Sharon Balab. 1979CACanadian novelist
- Anju Balab. 1979INIndian politician
- Fábio Balab. 1981BRBrazilian footballer
- Ezekiel Balab. 1987NGNigerian footballer
- Caomei Balab. 1996ESSpanish pornographic actress
- Aliko Balab. 1997NGNigerian association football player
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 62 sources across 32 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 52K | #300 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 29K | #110 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.7K | #11,124 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2K | #15,005 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.6K | #16,769 |
Reference works 10
- 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
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
- 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
- What does the name Bala mean, and where does it come from?
- , 2 Sanskrit: ‘young’, often used in compound epithets of Krishna. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- How do you pronounce Bala?
- A machine transcription gives /bala/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- What are other forms of the name Bala?
- In the etymology graph, Balla and Bila are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Bala have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 298 thousand people named Bala in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bala.
- How common is the name Bala?
- In India, the national register counted 51,870 people named Bala, about 1 in 26 thousand residents.
- How common is Bala compared with other names?
- In Nigeria, Bala is the 458th most common surname of 346,007 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bala?
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/balaThe 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, “Bala” — the 458th most common surname in Nigeria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.