Wa
loc · Latin script
Meaning: Abbreviation of Washington: a state of the United States
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Wa is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Indonesia than in any other country.
- HKHong Kong≈1 in 4.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- TNTunisia≈1 in 6.8K
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 11K
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 Wa 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.
- Indonesia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 186 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈11,000 named Wae, est.
Highest-authority source
Hong Kong, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Wae in ID Indonesia, HK Hong Kong, Wå in ZA South Africa, Wä in DZ Algeria and Wà in TN Tunisia.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Abbreviation of Washington: a state of the United States.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wa 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ID Indonesia | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Wae | 2 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈5,100 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Wå | 21 |
| DZ Algeria | ≈3,200 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Wä | 5 |
| DE Germany | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 27K | — | Wa | 71 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 6.8K | — | Wà | 9 |
| HK Hong Kong | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Wae | 52 |
| BR Brazil | 1,393 | 1 in 152K | 1.4K | — | 1 |
| AT Austria | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Wa | 14 |
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 — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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)
Wa 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 men, you and. Wa foma wu li, you and; foma, ye go. Compare § 27 B Mende Grammar, 1882 ; and page 55, Principles of Mende Grammar, Mende Mission, Sherbro
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In men, v., to come, to ap- proach. Wai lo, to have come; waa, to.come with = to bring. Negi wai lo a ngié, I have brought him. Ngi wa mbé
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In men, pron., 2 per. plu., neg., you or you not, not ye, ye must not. Wa lua ti ma, Fear ye not them
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
In Akan, imit, adv. expr. the rushing sound of trees agitated by the
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In cdo, of no value, shabby, to slight, to treat with contempt
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
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)
- Hua Tuob. 200CNnot in their usual nameChinese physician (c. 140–208)
- Hua Xiongb. 200not in their usual nameChinese military general (died 191)
- Hua Yanb. 1682CNnot in their usual nameChinese artist (1682-1756); CBDB ID = 74523
- Phraya Manopakorn Nitithadab. 1884THnot in their usual namePrime Minister of Siam from 1932 to 1933
- Abingb. 1893CNnot in their usual nameChinese musician (1893–1950)
- Hua Gangb. 1903CNnot in their usual nameChinese historian (1903–1972)
- Hua Luogengb. 1910CNnot in their usual nameChinese mathematician (1910-1985)
- Hua Guofengb. 1921CNnot in their usual name2nd Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, 2nd Premier of the People's Republic of China (1921–2008)
- Hua Chunyingb. 1970CNnot in their usual nameChinese diplomat
- Hua Chenyub. 1990CNnot in their usual nameChinese singer and songwriter
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 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.4K | #6,805 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 69 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 37 | #53,441 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 32 | #53,441 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Wa mean, and where does it come from?
- Abbreviation of Washington: a state of the United States. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Wa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 11 thousand people named Wae in Indonesia, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Wa?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 1,393 people named Wa, about 1 in 152 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Wa?
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/waThe 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, “Wa”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.