Canela
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: cinnamon
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Canela is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- DODominican Republic≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 28K
- ESSpain1 in 29K
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
- 202 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)
7,610 people
Highest-authority source
Dominican Republic, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A dialect of the Canela-Krahô language, a Timbira variety of the Northern Jê language group.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Canela is read(measured from records)
Canela is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Spanish67%
cinnamon
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English15%
A dialect of the Canela-Krahô language, a Timbira variety of the Northern Jê language group.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Portuguese11%
cinnamon (spice from the cinnamon tree)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Canela 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 | — | 7,610 | 1 in 28K | 7.6K | Canela | 86 |
| DO Dominican Republic | #163 | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Canela | 39 |
| US United States | — | 3,619 | 1 in 92K | 3.6K | Canela | 202 |
| ES Spain | — | 1,698 | 1 in 29K | 1.7K | Canela | 109 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 93K | — | Canela | 17 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 321 | 1 in 11K | 321 | Canela | 12 |
| PY Paraguay | — | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Canela | 11 |
7,610 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
Canela is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Galician, cane or pipe
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Romanian, CANELÁ, canelez, vb. I. Tranz. A face caneluri pe suprafața interioară sau cea exterioară a unei piese, a unei coloane etc.
as a wordDEX online (dexonline.ro) - DEX '96 / DEX '98 definitions with etymology
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)
- Arthur Canelab. 1847FRFrench artist (active 1883)
- Pablo Canelab. 1914VEVenezuelan composer (1914-1981)
- Mercè Canelab. 1956ESSpanish translator and writer
- Montserrat Canela Garayoab. 1959ESCatalan writer
- Carme Canelab. 1962ESSpanish singer
- Andoni Canelab. 1969ESSpanish photographer
- Jencarlos Canelab. 1988USAmerican actor and singer
- Jason Canelab. 1992USAmerican actor
- Rolando Abreub. 1992CUnot in their usual nameCuban association football player
- Bryan Canelab. 1994PEPeruvian association football player
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 31 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 7.6K | #1,613 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.6K | #9,030 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.1K | #9,956 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.2K | #12,883 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 1.7K | #2,777 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 1.7K | #2,776 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 321 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Canela come from?
- A dialect of the Canela-Krahô language, a Timbira variety of the Northern Jê language group. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What does the name Canela mean?
- In Spanish, cinnamon
- What are other forms of the name Canela?
- In the etymology graph, Canelo is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Canela have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 7.6 thousand people named Canela, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled canela.
- How common is the name Canela?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 7,610 people named Canela, about 1 in 28 thousand residents.
- How common is Canela compared with other names?
- In the Dominican Republic, Canela is the 163rd most common surname of 26,844 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Canela?
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/canelaThe 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, “Canela” — the 163rd most common surname in Dominican Republic. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.