Gavilan

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Sp. gavilan sparrowhawk (of Gmc origin, apparently a deriv

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

/gaβilan/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Gavilan is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Paraguay than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • PYParaguay≈1 in 703(inferred from the name graph)
  • PEPeru≈1 in 5.7K
  • ARArgentina1 in 6.6K

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.

Paraguay (inferred from the name graph)

≈10,000 people, est.

Sources
135 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 703 (inferred from the name graph)

Paraguay, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Sp. gavilan sparrowhawk (of Gmc origin, apparently a deriv. of gabal fork (cf. Gabler), referring to the talons of the bird). Gavilan was also used in the Middle Ages Vars. (of 1): McGynnowar, Maginnoire, Magennure, Magenor. Gayter see Gate as a given name, perhaps in part preserving a Gmc by¬ name, and this may also lie behind some examples of the Gaze see Wage surname.

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Gavilan 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 Gavilan is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
PY Paraguay#137≈10,000 est.≈1 in 703—Gavilan36
AR Argentina#7386,8831 in 6.6K6.9KGavilan59
PE Peru#673≈5,600 est.≈1 in 5.7K—Gavilan49
ES Spain#7345,5531 in 9K5.6KGavilan119
PH Philippines—≈1,500 est.≈1 in 74K—Gavilan37
CL Chile#523≈1,300 est.≈1 in 14K—Gavilan65

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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal). 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)

Gavilan is also recorded as 6 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 Gavilán

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Gavilá́n, Gavilàn, Gávilan, Gavilán

  • Indonesian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, Philippines, Paraguay, Indonesia

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Gavilán

  • Swahili surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Peru, Philippines, Paraguay, Spain

    Also written Gavilán

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Paraguay, Spain, Peru, Italy

    Also written Gavilán

  • Swedish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, Peru, United States, Sweden

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Gavilán

35 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.

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).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalEstimado/a Gavilan,Dear Gavilan, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Gavilan,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 18 sources across 13 countries.

Official registers attesting Gavilan
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—6.9K—
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—5.6K#969
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—5.6K#969

Reference works 1

  • 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

Where does the name Gavilan come from?
Sp. gavilan sparrowhawk (of Gmc origin, apparently a deriv. of gabal fork (cf. Gabler), referring to the talons of the bird). Gavilan was also used in the Middle Ages Vars. Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
How do you pronounce Gavilan?
A machine transcription gives /gaβilan/ (IPA) for Spanish.
What does the name Gavilan mean?
Recorded meaning: Sp. gavilan sparrowhawk (of Gmc origin, apparently a deriv.
In which country does Gavilan have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 10 thousand people named Gavilan in Paraguay, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gavilan.
How common is the name Gavilan?
In Argentina, the national register counted 6,883 people named Gavilan, about 1 in 6.6 thousand residents.
How common is Gavilan compared with other names?
In Paraguay, Gavilan is the 137th most common surname of 30,328 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Gavilan?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gavilan

The 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, “Gavilan” — the 137th most common surname in Paraguay. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Gavilan parses inside a full name →