Galera
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: name for a shipbuilder or a sailor, from Sp., Cat. galera galley (L galea, from Gk). The word originally denoted a particular type of ship built in Catalonia
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɡaleɾa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Galera is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country.
- ESSpain1 in 6.2K(measured from records)
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 16K
- ARArgentina1 in 26K
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)
- Sources
- 173 (measured from records)
- 1 in 6.2K (inferred from the name graph)
8,046 people
Highest-authority source
Spain
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
name for a shipbuilder or a sailor, from Sp., Cat. galera galley (L galea, from Gk). The word originally denoted a particular type of ship built in Catalonia.
Sources 1
- A dictionary of surnames
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
How Galera is read(measured from records)
Galera is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.
- Spanish61%
name for a shipbuilder or a sailor, from Sp., Cat. galera galley (L galea, from Gk). The word originally denoted a particular type of ship built in Catalonia.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
- English19%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Galera in English.
- French7.9%
third-person singular simple future of galer
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Portuguese7.5%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Galera in Portuguese.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Galera 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | #515 | 8,046 | 1 in 6.2K | 8K | Galera | 140 |
| PH Philippines | — | ≈7,000 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Galera | 37 |
| BR Brazil | — | 2,160 | 1 in 98K | 2.2K | — | 1 |
| AR Argentina | — | 1,743 | 1 in 26K | 1.7K | Galera | 53 |
| FR France | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 68K | 138 | Galera | 173 |
| CR Costa Rica | #636 | 135 | 1 in 38K | 135 | Galera | 14 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 53 | 1 in 64K | 53 | Galera | 6 |
8,046 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: INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; 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)
Galera is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Latin, nominative/accusative/vocative plural of galērum
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Polish, galley (ship propelled primarily by oars)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Italian, prison, jail, jug
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, loss
as a wordTrask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
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)
- Diego Llorenteb. 1807ESnot in their usual namejurist, lawer
- Alfredo Galerab. 1899ES[occupation:teniente general] [dates:1899] [archive:Archivo Biográfico de España, Portugal e Iberoamérica]
- Hugo Galera Davidsonb. 1938ESSpanish physician
- Joaquim Galerab. 1940ESSpanish cyclist
- Pedro A. Galera Andreub. 1948ESSpanish art historian
- Federico Galerab. 1953ESmodern pentathlete
- José Manuel Motos Galerab. 1959ESSpanish painter
- Sílvia Romerob. 1968ESnot in their usual nameSpanish politician
- Elia Galerab. 1973ESSpanish actress and television presenter
- Daniel Galerab. 1979BRBrazilian writer, translator and editor
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 26 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 8K | #687 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 8K | #687 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 2.2K | #4,549 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 1.7K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 195 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 168 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 138 | — |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 135 | #1,222 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 113 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 80 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 66 | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 53 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Galera mean, and where does it come from?
- name for a shipbuilder or a sailor, from Sp., Cat. galera galley (L galea, from Gk). The word originally denoted a particular type of ship built in Catalonia. Recorded by A dictionary of surnames.
- How do you pronounce Galera?
- A machine transcription gives /ɡaleɾa/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Galera have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 8.0 thousand people named Galera, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled galera.
- Where is Galera most common?
- Galera is densest in Spain, where the national register counts about 1 in 6.2 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Galera?
- In Spain, the national register counted 8,046 people named Galera, about 1 in 6.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Galera compared with other names?
- In Spain, Galera is the 515th most common surname of 395,154 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Galera?
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/galeraThe 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, “Galera” — the 515th most common surname in Spain. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.