Alva
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 2 Anglicized form of the traditional Irish Gaelic name Ailbhe, which is derived from Old Irish albho ‘white’
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 39 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/alβa/(machine-generated) Spanish · model-generated
Alva is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Peru than in any other country.
- PEPeru≈1 in 920(inferred from the name graph)
- GTGuatemala≈1 in 5.9K
- HNHonduras≈1 in 12K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Peru (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 243 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 921 (inferred from the name graph)
≈35,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Peru, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)2 Anglicized form of the traditional Irish Gaelic name Ailbhe, which is derived from Old Irish albho ‘white’. In medieval times this was a boy’s name, but it has been revived mainly as a girl’s name
Cited for this meaning 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Alva, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Alva 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PE Peru | #124 | ≈35,000 est. | ≈1 in 921 | — | Alva | 105 |
| US United States | — | 6,026 | 1 in 55K | 6K | Alva | 243 |
| GT Guatemala | #310 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | Alva | 25 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈2,300 est. | ≈1 in 47K | — | Alva | 29 |
| BR Brazil | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 113K | 692 | Alva | 50 |
| AR Argentina | — | 1,712 | 1 in 27K | 1.7K | Alva | 50 |
| CL Chile | — | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Alva | 41 |
| HN Honduras | #449 | ≈760 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Alva | 16 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — Nomes (census name API). 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)Alva 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 in Clackmannanshire council area, Scotland (OS grid ref NS8897)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, weibl. Vom. schwedischer Herkunft, weibliche Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Luz blanca
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
Irish: Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Almha. This is of uncertain origin; it is earlier found in the form Almu and was borne, according to legend, by a semi-divine heroine who gave her name to the fortress and hill of Almu in Leinster.
as a word
In Portuguese, alb (long white robe worn by priests and other ministers)
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)- Joachim Alvab. 1907INIndian politician (1907-1979)
- Violet Alvab. 1908INIndian politician (1908-1969)
- Luigi Alvab. 1927PEPeruvian opera tenor (1927–2025)
- Javier Alva Orlandinib. 1927PEPeruvian lawyer/politician (1927–2020)
- Margaret Alvab. 1942INGovernor of the Indian state of Rajasthan
- Luis Alva Castrob. 1942PEPeruvian economist and politician
- Walter Alva Alvab. 1951PEPeruvian archaeologist
- Tony Alvab. 1957USAmerican skateboarder and entrepreneur
- Maricarmen Alvab. 1967PEPeruvian politician
- María Antonieta Alvab. 1985PEPeruvian politician and economist
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)83 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 39 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6K | #5,750 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.8K | #5,730 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.6K | #6,796 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 1.7K | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Where does the name Alva come from?
- 2 Anglicized form of the traditional Irish Gaelic name Ailbhe, which is derived from Old Irish albho ‘white’. In medieval times this was a boy’s name, but it has been revived mainly as a girl’s name Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- In which country does Alva have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 35 thousand people named Alva in Peru, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled alva.
- What does the name Alva mean?
- Recorded meaning: 2 Anglicized form of the traditional Irish Gaelic name Ailbhe, which is derived from Old Irish albho ‘white’.
- How do you pronounce Alva?
- In Spanish /alβa/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- How common is the name Alva?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,026 people named Alva in 2010, about 1 in 55 thousand residents.
- How common is Alva compared with other names?
- In Peru, Alva is the 124th most common surname of 173,371 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Alva?
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/alvaThe 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, “Alva” — the 124th most common surname in Peru. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.