Sona
given name · Latin script
Meaning: The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/soʊnə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sona is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nigeria than in any other country. In Türkiye it is the 27th most common surname.
- EGEgypt≈1 in 64K(inferred from the name graph)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 297as Sani
- TRTürkiye≈1 in 411as Şen
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 Sona 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)
- #345 (measured from records)
- 12 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 459 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 64K (inferred from the name graph)
≈720,000 named Sani, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Egypt, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
20 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Sana in PK Pakistan, EG Egypt, MA Morocco, Sani in NG Nigeria, ID Indonesia, Soni in IN India and Şen in TR Türkiye.
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)
The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares. See the sona-Nanda Jātaka.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sona 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 | — | ≈720,000 est. | ≈1 in 297 | listed | Sani | 63 |
| IN India | #78 | 218,303as Sen | 1 in 6.1K | 218K | Soni | 293 |
| TR Türkiye | #27 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 411 | #94 | Şen | 125 |
| PK Pakistan | #597 | ≈33,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | listed | Sana | 133 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | listed | Sani | 151 |
| AR Argentina | — | 16,831as Sena | 1 in 2.7K | 17K | Jona | 39 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈7,300 est. | ≈1 in 4.8K | listed | Sana | 96 |
| FI Finland | — | 3,007as Suni | 1 in 1.9K | 26K | Sanna | 10 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 64K | listed | Sana | 80 |
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; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Sona 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.
Rhodes
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In Italian, oriundo da cidade set. de Sona, de raízes obscuras
as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
In Cebuano, a zone; a given area distinguished on the basis of a particular characteristic, use, restriction, etc.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Azerbaijani, A transliteration of the Armenian female given name Սոնա (Sona)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latin, second-person singular present active imperative of sonō
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Sona Akhundova-Bagirbekovab. 1896AZAzerbaijani ophthalmologist
- Sona Aslanovab. 1924AZopera singer (1924–2011)
- Sona MacDonaldb. 1961ATAustrian actress
- Sona Heidenb. 1969INIndian actress
- Sona Nairb. 1975INIndian actress
- Sona Mohapatrab. 1978INIndian singer
- Sona Taumalolob. 1981TOTongan rugby union player
- Sona Movsesianb. 1982USpodcaster, author and personal assistant
- Sona Jobartehb. 1983GBGambian musician
- Sona Ghazaryanb. 1993AMArmenian politician
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 74 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | India Names Dataset — Andhra Pradesh Electoral Rolls (Internet Archive) | — | 3.7K | #1,120 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 2.7K | #2,528 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 346 | #385 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 342 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 77 | #3,586 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 40 | #8,103 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 29 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2017 | 4 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 1955 | 2 | — |
| IN India | naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) | 2017 | 1 | — |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- 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
- How do you pronounce Sona?
- A machine transcription gives /soʊnə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Where does the name Sona come from?
- The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares. See the sona-Nanda Jātaka. Recorded by Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H).
- In which country does Sona have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 721 thousand people named Sani in Nigeria, more than in any other country we hold.
- What does the name Sona mean?
- Recorded meaning: The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares.
- Is Sona a male or female name?
- Sona 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.
- How common is the name Sona?
- In India, the national register counted 218,303 people named Sen, about 1 in 6.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Sona compared with other names?
- In Türkiye, Sona is the 27th most common surname of 619,652 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sona?
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/sonaThe 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, “Sona” — the 27th most common surname in Türkiye. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.