Cruz

surname · Latin script

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

Cruz is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 32nd most common surname. In Spanish, recorded as Latin crux, 'cross'; Christian symbol of redemption.

rarermore common
  • DODominican Republic≈1 in 63(inferred from the name graph)
  • HNHonduras≈1 in 77
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 79

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)

≈980,000 people, est.

#59 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

Sources
538 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 63 (inferred from the name graph)

Dominican Republic, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from the Spanish or Portuguese personal name Cruz, or person from places called (La) Cruz; from cruz ‘cross’.

Sources 1

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

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Cruz is read(measured from records)

Cruz is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • Spanish60%

    Latin crux, 'cross'; Christian symbol of redemption.

    as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios

  • English18%

    from the Spanish or Portuguese personal name Cruz, or person from places called (La) Cruz; from cruz ‘cross’.

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

    A surname from Ibero-Romance.

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

  • Portuguese13%

    cross

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese

    cross (geometrical figure)

    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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Cruz 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 Cruz is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#32≈980,000 est.≈1 in 217395Cruz263
PH Philippines#5≈940,000 est.≈1 in 117—Cruz192
US United States#211334,2011 in 995343KCruz538
PE Peru#7≈270,000 est.≈1 in 119454KCruz148
DO Dominican Republic#3≈170,000 est.≈1 in 63—Cruz139
HN Honduras#5≈120,000 est.≈1 in 77—Cruz92
SV El Salvador#12≈82,000 est.≈1 in 79—Cruz96

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 — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); RENIEC — DNI population names; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)

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

  • English surname48 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: English, Dutch

    Also written Crüz, Crúz, Çruz, Crùz, Çrüz

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Crúz, C-Ruz, Cruź

  • French surname18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Philippines, United States, Spain

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Crùz, Crüz, Crúz, Črūz, Črüz

  • Indonesian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, Indonesia, Peru, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Filipino, Malagasy

    Also written Crüz, Čřűž, Çrüz, Črüz, Ĉruz

  • Hindi surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, United States, Philippines, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Crüz, Črüz, Crúz, Crūz, Çr̸űż

  • German surname20 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, United States, Philippines, Peru

    Languages: German, English

    Also written Cruez, Crüz, Çrûz, Cruź, Crúz

112 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)

Cruz 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.

  • Como el cristal

    as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado

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)

1900195020002050Pedro Infante Sr., b. 1917Celia Cruz, b. 1925Camarón de la Isla, b. 1950Manuel Marrero Cruz, b. 1963Ted Cruz, b. 1970Penélope Cruz, b. 1974Ulises Cruz, b. 1974Taio Cruz, b. 1980Dominick Cruz, b. 1985Oliver Cruz, 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 97 sources across 49 countries.

Official registers attesting Cruz
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
PE PeruRENIEC — DNI population names2019454K#8
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020343K#55
PE PeruRENIEC — Apellidos más frecuentes (national DNI bearer counts, 2025)2025341K#24
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010334K#57
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000231K#82

Reference works 8

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 Cruz come from?
from the Spanish or Portuguese personal name Cruz, or person from places called (La) Cruz; from cruz ‘cross’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
What does the name Cruz mean?
In Spanish, Latin crux, 'cross'; Christian symbol of redemption.
In which country does Cruz have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 975 thousand people named Cruz in Brazil, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cruz.
How common is the name Cruz?
In the United States, the national register counted 334,201 people named Cruz in 2010, about 1 in 995 residents.
How common is Cruz compared with other names?
In Brazil, Cruz is the 32nd most common surname of 424,864 surnames recorded there.
What are other forms of the name Cruz?
In the etymology graph, Cruzado, Cruce and Cruzada are forms of the same name in other languages.

What do you want to know about Cruz?

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

The same 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), 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, “Cruz” — the 32nd most common surname in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Cruz parses inside a full name →