Espina
surname · Latin script
Meaning: thorn
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/espina/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Espina is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Philippines than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 3.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- CLChile≈1 in 4.5K
- VEVenezuela≈1 in 7.7K
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.
- Philippines (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 200 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈28,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Philippines, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
thorn
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Espina 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PH Philippines | #185 | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.9K | — | Espina | 98 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Espina | 16 |
| CL Chile | #519 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Espina | 78 |
| VE Venezuela | #726 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 7.7K | — | Espina | 45 |
| ES Spain | — | 3,286 | 1 in 15K | 3.3K | Espina | 114 |
| GT Guatemala | #432 | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.5K | — | Espina | 28 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 579 | 1 in 5.9K | 579 | Espina | 27 |
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: 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)
Espina is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
thorn; Toledo, Ciudad de Mexico
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In Catalan, thorn, spike
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Asturian, spine
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)
- Juan Espina y Capob. 1848ESSpanish painter (1848-1933)
- Concha Espinab. 1869ESSpanish writer (1869–1955)
- Víctor de la Sernab. 1896ESnot in their usual nameSpanish writer and journalist (1896-1958)
- Josefina de la Serna Espinab. 1903ESSpanish writer
- Gustavo Adolfo Espina Salguerob. 1946GTGuatemalan President (1946–2024)
- Alberto Espinab. 1956CLChilean politician
- Fernando Martínb. 1962ESnot in their usual nameSpanish basketball player (1962–1989)
- Antonio Martín Espinab. 1966ESSpanish basketball player (born 1966)
- Marcelo Espinab. 1967ARArgentine footballer and manager
- Melendib. 1979ESnot in their usual nameSpanish singer and songwriter
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 24 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 3.3K | #1,570 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 3.3K | #1,570 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 579 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- What does the name Espina mean, and where does it come from?
- thorn Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Espina?
- A machine transcription gives /espina/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- What are other forms of the name Espina?
- In the etymology graph, Espinal and Espinoso are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Espina have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 28 thousand people named Espina in the Philippines, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled espina.
- How common is the name Espina?
- In Spain, the national register counted 3,286 people named Espina, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Espina compared with other names?
- In the Philippines, Espina is the 185th most common surname of 876,464 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Espina?
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/espinaThe 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, “Espina” — the 185th most common surname in Philippines. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.