Soma
given name · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Soma is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Egypt than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Swahili: 'to read; to go to school' (also Hindi: 'moon').
- BDBangladesh≈1 in 12K(inferred from the name graph)
- HUHungary1 in 1.9K
- EGEgypt≈1 in 5.6K
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 Soma 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.
- Egypt (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 163 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈19,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Hungary
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Shoma in EG Egypt, SA Saudi Arabia, KW Kuwait and Shuma in TZ Tanzania.
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)
Swahili: 'to read; to go to school' (also Hindi: 'moon')
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested across 17 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Soma 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EG Egypt | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.6K | — | Shoma | 24 |
| BD Bangladesh | #676 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Soma | 31 |
| HU Hungary | — | 5,201 | 1 in 1.9K | 5.2K | — | — |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Shuma | 5 |
| SA Saudi Arabia | — | ≈3,500 est. | ≈1 in 9.7K | — | Shoma | 8 |
| KW Kuwait | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Shoma | 5 |
| IN India | #477 | — | — | 2.3K | Soma | 163 |
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; Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025). 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)
Soma 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 pi, A deva to whom sacrifice is offered; he is generally mentioned with Varuṇa, Pajāpati and Yama.’ I n the Āṭānāṭiya Sutta^ he is spoken of as a Yakkha chief. He is identified with the Moongod of later literature.’ the founder of the Somavaṃsa (dynasty). 28; vf. 201, 568, 571. E.g., CVI lxif. 5; lxiii. 14.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H)
In pi, A Yavapāla who offered grass for his seat to Kassapa Buddha.’
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H)
Ardhanarigvara (N); Hanuman (N); Jina (N);
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
moon, born in lunar month Cancer
as a nameA Genealogists Guide to Indian Names A Reference for First Names from India
To read; go to school.
as a nameThe African book of names
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)
- Soma Orlai Petrichb. 1822HUHungarian artist (c.1820-1880)
- Soma Visontaib. 1854HUHungarian lawyer, politician (1854–1925)
- Soma Guthib. 1866HU(1866–1930) writer, humorist
- Soma Beckb. 1872HUHungarian physician, dermatologist and university teacher (1872-1930)
- Soma Morgensternb. 1890ATAustrian writer (1890-1976)
- Soma Braunb. 1890HUpolitician (1890-1942)
- Soma Weissb. 1898USAmerican physician (1898–1942)
- Soma Novothnyb. 1994HUHungarian footballer (born 1994)
- Soma Vogelb. 1997HUHungarian water polo player
- Soma Chhayab. 1998CACanadian actress
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 64 sources across 33 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HU Hungary | Nyilvántartó — Top-100 given names in population (2020–2025) | 2025 | 5.2K | #91 |
| HU Hungary | Nyilvántartó — Top-100 newborn names (2020–2024) | 2024 | 327 | #36 |
| HU Hungary | magyarnevek.hu — Top-100 newborn given names 2025 (M+F) | 2025 | 299 | #36 |
| HU Hungary | magyarnevek — given names by decade | 1997 | 112 | #69 |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2017 | 14 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2017 | 7 | — |
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Lietuvių kalbos institutas — Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Lithuanian surname dictionary)
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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
- Is Soma a male or female name?
- Soma is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What does the name Soma mean, and where does it come from?
- Swahili: 'to read; to go to school' (also Hindi: 'moon') Recorded by African Names.
- In which country does Soma have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 19 thousand people named Soma in Egypt, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled shoma.
- Where is Soma most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Soma is densest in Hungary — about 1 in 1.9 thousand people — even though Egypt holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Soma?
- In Hungary, the national register counted 5,201 people named Soma in 2025, about 1 in 1.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Soma compared with other names?
- In India, Soma is the 477th most common given name of 3,760,348 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Soma?
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/somaThe 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, “Soma” — the 477th most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.