Insua
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Insua is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From the earlier ynsoa, from Old Galician-Portuguese insua, inssoa, from Latin īnsula (“island”). Cognate with Portuguese ínsua and Spanish isla.
- ESSpain1 in 18K(measured from records)
- ARArgentina1 in 19K
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
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
- 106 (measured from records)
- 1 in 7.0K (inferred from the name graph)
2,707 people
Highest-authority source
Uruguay
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Old Galician-Portugueseinsua(measured from records)
- Latinīnsula“island”(measured from records)
From the earlier ynsoa, from Old Galician-Portuguese insua, inssoa, from Latin īnsula (“island”). Cognate with Portuguese ínsua and Spanish isla.
Sources 1
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Insua 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 | 2,707 | 1 in 18K | 2.7K | Insua | 106 |
| AR Argentina | 2,385 | 1 in 19K | 2.4K | Insua | 76 |
| UY Uruguay | 484 | 1 in 7K | 484 | Insua | 14 |
| US United States | 314 | 1 in 1.1M | 321 | Insua | 100 |
| VE Venezuela | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 255K | — | Insua | 14 |
| PY Paraguay | ≈76 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Insua | 7 |
| CH Switzerland | 48 | 1 in 175K | 48 | Insua | 4 |
2,707 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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Insua is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Galician, islet, eyot, holm; peninsula; place totally or partially surrounded by rivers and waters
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In roa-opt, alternative form of inssoa
as a wordkaikki.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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Manuel Ínsua Sánchezb. 1890ESSpanish politician (1890-1966)
- Roberto Insuab. 1954UYUruguayan association football player
- Miguel Insuab. 1961ESSpanish actor
- David Ríos Insuab. 1964ESresearcher
- Emílio Ínsuab. 1967ESSpanish poet
- Pedro Insuab. 1973ESSpanish philosopher and writer
- Pablo Insuab. 1993ESSpanish footballer
- Ana InsuaESresearcher
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 14 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 2.7K | #1,883 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 2.7K | #1,883 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 2.4K | — |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 484 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 321 | #66,499 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 314 | #63,524 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 261 | #70,052 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 48 | #19,268 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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
- What does the name Insua mean, and where does it come from?
- From the earlier ynsoa, from Old Galician-Portuguese insua, inssoa, from Latin īnsula (“island”). Cognate with Portuguese ínsua and Spanish isla. Recorded by Wiktionary.
- In which country does Insua have the most bearers?
- In Spain, the national register counted about 2.7 thousand people named Insua, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled insua.
- Where is Insua most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Insua is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 7.0 thousand people — even though Spain holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Insua?
- In Spain, the national register counted 2,707 people named Insua, about 1 in 18 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Insua?
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/insuaThe 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, “Insua”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.