Ferrara

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.

• Spanish:/feraɾa/○(machine-generated) model-generated
• Italian:/ferˈra.ra/●(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary

Readings marked model-generated were transcribed by a model; the others are quoted from the dictionary named.

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Ferrara is one spelling over 4 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.

• English61%

  An Andrea Ferrara sword; (generally) a broadsword.

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  prov & town, Italy

  as a name·Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

• Spanish12%

  first/third-person singular imperfect subjunctive of ferrar

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• Italian12%

  Ferrara (a province of Italy)

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  oriundo da cidade de Ferrara; do lat. ferraria

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

• French5.3%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Ferrara in French.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Ferrara is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Italian surname6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Italy, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

  Also written Fèrràrà, Fėrrårā, Fèrrarà, Fèrràra

• French surname5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Italy

  Also written Férrara, Fërrãrã, Fęrrãrã

• Portuguese surname6 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Italy, United Kingdom

  Also written Fėŕřârá, Fêrrårä, Fĕŕrãřa, Ferrará, Fërrárå

• Thai surname5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Italy, United States, Laos, Thailand

  Languages: Thai, Lao

  Also written แฟร์ราร่า, แฟรรารา, Ferara

• Croatian surname11 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Croatia, Italy, United States, Bulgaria

  Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

  Also written Ferara, Ферара, Феррара

48 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.

Ferrara is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Galician, first/third-person singular pluperfect indicative of ferrar

  as a word·kaikki.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.

• Franco Ferrarab. 1911ITItalian composer (1911–1985)
• Abel Ferrarab. 1951USAmerican film director
• Jerry Ferrarab. 1979USAmerican actor

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).

37 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 21 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Where does the name Ferrara come from?

first/third-person singular imperfect subjunctive of ferrar Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).

How do you pronounce Ferrara?

It depends on the language: in Spanish /feraɾa/; in Italian /ferˈra.ra/ (Wiktionary). Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.

What does the name Ferrara mean?

In English, An Andrea Ferrara sword; (generally) a broadsword.

Which countries have the most people with the surname Ferrara?

Mondonomo estimates about 57 thousand people named Ferrara in Italy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ferrara. After it come United States, United Kingdom, Argentina and France; the country table on this page ranks them.

How common is the name Ferrara?

In the United States, the national register counted 13,669 people named Ferrara in 2010, about 1 in 24 thousand residents.

How common is Ferrara compared with other names?

In Jamaica, Ferrara is the 525th most common surname of 50,451 surnames recorded there.