Fônseca
surname · Latin script
Fônseca is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 61st most common surname. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Portuguese Fonseca, from fonte seca (literally “dry well”).
- CRCosta Rica1 in 151(measured from records)
- PTPortugal≈1 in 300
- BRBrazil1 in 342
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)
- #607 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 343 (measured from records)
- 1 in 151 (inferred from the name graph)
618,921 people
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Costa Rica
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Fonseca in BR Brazil, US United States, CR Costa Rica and 3 more.
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)
Borrowed from Portuguese Fonseca, from fonte seca (literally “dry well”).
Sources 2
- A dictionary of surnames
- Wiktionary
Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Fônseca 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 | #61 | 618,921 | 1 in 342 | 619K | Fonseca | 244 |
| CO Colombia | #144 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 46 | Fonseca | 158 |
| PT Portugal | #44 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 300 | — | Fonseca | 187 |
| CR Costa Rica | #40 | 33,780 | 1 in 151 | 34K | Fonseca | 114 |
| US United States | — | 25,863 | 1 in 13K | 26K | Fonseca | 343 |
| NI Nicaragua | #79 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 583 | — | Fonseca | 47 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 5,087 | 1 in 666 | 5.1K | — | 55 |
618,921 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Fônseca mean, and where does it come from?
- Borrowed from Portuguese Fonseca, from fonte seca (literally “dry well”). Recorded by A dictionary of surnames and Wiktionary.
- In which country does Fônseca have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 619 thousand people named Fônseca, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled fonseca.
- Where is Fônseca most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Fônseca is densest in Costa Rica — about 1 in 151 people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Fônseca?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 618,921 people named Fônseca, about 1 in 342 residents.
- How common is Fônseca compared with other names?
- In Brazil, Fônseca is the 61st most common surname of 424,864 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Fônseca?
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/f%C3%B4nsecaThe 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, “Fônseca” — the 61st most common surname in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.