Cano

surname · Latin script

Meaning: near an underground passage or cave, Sp

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/kano/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Cano is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country, where it is the 46th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • NINicaragua≈1 in 381(inferred from the name graph)
  • ESSpain1 in 647
  • PYParaguay≈1 in 660

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.

Spain (measured from records)

77,356 people

#729 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
408 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 381 (inferred from the name graph)

Nicaragua, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

CanoLatin(measured from records)
카노Hangul(measured from records)

Locally spelled Caño in UY Uruguay.

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)

near an underground passage or cave, Sp. caho (of uncer109 Carballo Canova tain origin; probably derived from L canna reed (cf. Cain i), although the semantic development is not clear). Caparros Catalan; nickname for a person with a small head or limited intellect, from Cat. cap head (see Cap) + arros (grain of) rice. Canova see Casanova

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Cano 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.

Where Cano is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ES Spain#4677,3561 in 64777KCano221
CO Colombia#91≈71,000 est.≈1 in 68734Cano169
US United States—37,3681 in 8.9K37KCano408
AR Argentina#21330,6831 in 1.5K31KCano118
PH Philippines#221≈23,000 est.≈1 in 4.8K—Cano84
NI Nicaragua#51≈16,000 est.≈1 in 381—Cano34
PY Paraguay#130≈11,000 est.≈1 in 660—Cano41
UY Uruguay—3,7091 in 9133.7KCaño43

77,356 people counted by INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); the co-datosgov-candidates register; 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Cano is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name8 spellings in the group

    Also written Caňo, Caṅo, Canó, Can̋o, Ćano

  • Lao surname27 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, Thailand, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written กาโน, Gano, Caño, คาโน, คาโนะ

  • Italian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, Spain, Philippines

    Also written Canò, Cano', Caño

  • Arabic surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Egypt, Peru

    Languages: Arabic, Maltese

    Also written Caño, Çano, Cẵno, Cànô, Čänõ

  • Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Spain, Peru

    Also written Caño

  • Swedish surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Sweden, Denmark

    Languages: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish

    Also written Caño

  • Russian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Peru, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Caño

57 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Cano 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 Spanish, near an underground passage or cave, Sp. caho (of uncer¬ tain origin; probably derived from L canna reed (cf. Cain 1), although the semantic development is not clear).

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • In Spanish, hoary, white-haired, grey-haired

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Kurdish, Soul, life

    as a wordkurdi.sh Kurdish personal names dictionary

  • In Portuguese, pipe, tube, gun barrel

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese

  • In Welsh, third-person singular present subjunctive of canu

    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)

1400160018002000Melchor Cano, b. 1509Alonso Cano, b. 1601Pancho Segura, b. 1921Fanny Cano Damián, b. 1944Alfonso Cano, b. 1948Juande Ramos, b. 1954Joaquín Reyes Cano, b. 1974Harkaitz Cano, b. 1975Jaime Penedo, b. 1981Germán Cano, b. 1988

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)

FormalEstimado/a Cano,Dear Cano, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Cano,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 48 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Cano
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—77K#52
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—77K#52
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201037K#931
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202037K#920
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—31K—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200027K#1,185
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—3.7K—
CO ColombiaColombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co)—34#82
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 7

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 Cano come from?
near an underground passage or cave, Sp. caho (of uncer109 Carballo Canova tain origin; probably derived from L canna reed (cf. Cain i), although the semantic development is not clear). Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
How do you pronounce Cano?
A machine transcription gives /kano/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What does the name Cano mean?
Recorded meaning: near an underground passage or cave, Sp.
In which country does Cano have the most bearers?
In Spain, the national register counted about 77 thousand people named Cano, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cano.
How common is the name Cano?
In Spain, the national register counted 77,356 people named Cano, about 1 in 647 residents.
How common is Cano compared with other names?
In Spain, Cano is the 46th most common surname of 395,154 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Cano?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cano

The 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, “Cano” — the 46th most common surname in Spain. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Cano parses inside a full name →