Boba
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Synonym of tapioca pearl
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/boʊbə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Boba is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Algeria than in any other country.
- DZAlgeria≈1 in 36K(inferred from the name graph)
- PLPoland1 in 37K
- CICôte d’Ivoire≈1 in 101K
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.
- Algeria (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 57 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 36K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,200 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Algeria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Synonym of tapioca pearl.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Boba 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.
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: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Boba 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 pmf, peeling, hard outer skin; peeled, bald, hairless
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Filipino, feminine of bobo: stupid; dumb
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of ぼば
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Portuguese, feminine singular of bobo
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In nxg, shrub with white blossoms
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- George Bobab. 1540FRpainter and engraver of the 16th century (1540-1599)
- Bartłomiej Maria Bobab. 1899PLPolish agricultural engineer
- Imre Bobab. 1919HUHungarian-American historian (1919-1996)
- Danuta Bobab. 1921PLPolish educator
- Bogumiła Bobab. 1945PLPolish politician and deputy
- Abraham Bobab. 1975ESSpanish musician
- Janine BobaDEGerman association football player
- Aleksandra BobaPLresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0003-1298-8100
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)
Attested in 25 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 519 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 519 | #6,303 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 506 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 506 | #6,342 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls | — | 204 | #17,458 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 172 | #2,436 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 153 | #45,615 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 36 | #7,556 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 14 | #78,267 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 12 | #1,936 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 11 | #8,855 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 9 | — |
Reference works 4
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- 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
- What does the name Boba mean, and where does it come from?
- Synonym of tapioca pearl. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Boba?
- A machine transcription gives /boʊbə/ (IPA) for Arabic.
- In which country does Boba have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.2 thousand people named Boba in Algeria, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Boba?
- In Poland, the national register counted 1,025 people named Boba in 2026, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Boba?
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/bobaThe 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, “Boba”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.