Balena
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/balena/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Balena is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- BRBrazil1 in 232K(measured from records)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 380K
- ITItaly≈1 in 165K
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 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 59 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 165K (inferred from the name graph)
912 people
Highest-authority source
Italy, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Balena 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 912 | 1 in 232K | 912 | Balena | 59 |
| IT Italy | ≈380 est. | ≈1 in 165K | listed | Balena | 10 |
| PH Philippines | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 380K | — | Balena | 22 |
| US United States | ≈94 est. | ≈1 in 3.5M | listed | Balena | 27 |
| AR Argentina | 63 | 1 in 722K | 63 | Balena | 20 |
| BE Belgium | 16 | 1 in 733K | 16 | — | — |
912 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; the xinhua-italian-manual register; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Balena 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, instrumental singular of bala (“strength”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Romanian, definite nominative/accusative singular of balenă
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Esperanto, cetacean, relating to whales
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Catalan, whale
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Latvian, apdzīvota vieta Beļģijā, Flandrijas reģiona Antverpenes provinces austrumos
as a wordTēzaurs.lv (Dictionary and Thesaurus of Latvian, AiLab / LU MII)
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.
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 16 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 912 | #10,111 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 63 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 16 | #55,690 |
| IT Italy | 意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 are other forms of the name Balena?
- In the etymology graph, Ballena is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Balena?
- A machine transcription gives /balena/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Balena have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 912 people named Balena, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled balena.
- How common is the name Balena?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 912 people named Balena, about 1 in 232 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Balena?
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/balenaThe 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, “Balena”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.