Ganas

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Ganas is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country. Recorded meaning: 1. occupational name for a coppersmith, from gana ‘coating’, ‘verdigris’.

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 133K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 686K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 68K

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.

South Africa (inferred from the name graph)

≈830 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
181 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 68K (inferred from the name graph)

South Africa, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

GanasLatin(measured from records)
ΓαναςGreek(measured from records)

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)

1. occupational name for a coppersmith, from gana ‘coating’, ‘verdigris’. 2. possibly also a variant of Ganis.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ganas 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 Ganas is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ZA South Africa≈830 est.≈1 in 68K—Ganas19
PH Philippines≈820 est.≈1 in 133K—Ganas35
US United States4851 in 686K551Ganas181
AO Angola≈440 est.≈1 in 73K—Ganas1
GH Ghana≈340 est.≈1 in 87K—Ganas4
GR Greece≈65 est.≈1 in 164K—Ganas14

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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)

Ganas is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Ganás

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, South Africa, United States

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Ganaş

38 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)

Ganas 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 zlm, predatory; unusually daring -- of man-eating tigers, crocodiles that attack men in boats, etc.

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In mrw, capability for carrying weights; capacity or strength

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In Asturian, second-person singular present subjunctive of ganar

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

  • In kaw, swift, wild, impetuous, furious, savage

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In poz-cet-pro, raw energy, animal appetite

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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)

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).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 16 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting Ganas
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020551#42,381
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000523#39,560
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010485#44,356
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

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 Ganas come from?
1. occupational name for a coppersmith, from gana ‘coating’, ‘verdigris’. 2. possibly also a variant of Ganis. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
What does the name Ganas mean?
Recorded meaning: 1. occupational name for a coppersmith, from gana ‘coating’, ‘verdigris’.
In which country does Ganas have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 825 people named Ganas in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ganas.
How common is the name Ganas?
In the United States, the national register counted 485 people named Ganas in 2010, about 1 in 686 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Ganas?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ganas

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Ganas”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ganas parses inside a full name →