Bugeja
surname · Latin script
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 9 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/bədʒʒə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bugeja is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Australia than in any other country. In Malta it is the 22nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: * From the city and port Bejaia in Algeria. * Possibly also a Maltese form of Sicilian Bug(g)ea, from Ancient Greek βουκαῖος (boukaîos, “cowherd”) (see βουκόλος (boukólos)).
- AUAustralia≈1 in 21K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.3M
- MTMalta≈1 in 2.2K
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.
- Australia (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 121 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,200 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Malta, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)* From the city and port Bejaia in Algeria. * Possibly also a Maltese form of Sicilian Bug(g)ea, from Ancient Greek βουκαῖος (boukaîos, “cowherd”) (see βουκόλος (boukólos)). * Also from Italian (Sicilian and Salentine) bbuggia (“poacher's bag”).
Cited for this meaning 1
Where in the world
(measured from records)Bugeja 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Bugeja | 121 |
| FR France | — | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 267K | 39 | — | 2 |
| MT Malta | #22 | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 16 | Bugeja | 69 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 375K | — | Bugeja | 68 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 688K | — | Bugeja | 3 |
| US United States | — | 144 | 1 in 2.3M | 144 | Bugeja | 103 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 315K | — | Bugeja | 41 |
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; the mt-um-surnames-historical register; 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- George Bugejab. 1962MTMaltese Catholic bishop
- Cordelia Bugejab. 1976GBBritish actress
- Chad Bugejab. 1981AUAustralian soccer player
- Alicia Bugeja Saidb. 1987MTMaltese politician
- Owen Bugejab. 1990MTMaltese association football player
- Haley Bugejab. 2004MTMaltese association football player
- Lara BugejaMTMaltese museum curator
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)16 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 144 | #120,187 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 133 | #132,523 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 128 | #124,109 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 47 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 40 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 39 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 37 | — |
| MT Malta | University of Malta — Maltese surnames, the 1419/20 Militia Roll | — | 16 | #19 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 3 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 2 | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
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 Bugeja mean, and where does it come from?
- * From the city and port Bejaia in Algeria. * Possibly also a Maltese form of Sicilian Bug(g)ea, from Ancient Greek βουκαῖος (boukaîos, “cowherd”) (see βουκόλος (boukólos)). Recorded by Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Bugeja?
- A machine transcription gives /bədʒʒə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Bugeja have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.2 thousand people named Bugeja in Australia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bugeja.
- How common is the name Bugeja?
- In the United States, the national register counted 144 people named Bugeja in 2010, about 1 in 2.3 million residents.
- How common is Bugeja compared with other names?
- In Malta, Bugeja is the 22nd most common surname of 5,132 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Bugeja?
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/bugejaThe 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, “Bugeja” — the 22nd most common surname in Malta. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.