Jota

surname · Latin script

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

Jota is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Angola than in any other country. In Portuguese, recorded as The name of the Latin-script letter J/j.

rarermore common
  • BRBrazil≈1 in 215K(inferred from the name graph)
  • NONorway1 in 20K
  • AOAngola≈1 in 28K

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.

Angola (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,100 people, est.

Sources
75 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 20K (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

A traditional popular dance of the Iberian peninsula with regional variations.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

How Jota is read(measured from records)

Jota is one spelling over 3 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.

  • Spanish57%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Jota in Spanish.

  • Portuguese25%

    The name of the Latin-script letter J/j.

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

  • English7.4%

    A traditional popular dance of the Iberian peninsula with regional variations.

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

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Jota 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 Jota is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AO Angola#775≈1,100 est.≈1 in 28K—Jota6
BR Brazil—≈980 est.≈1 in 215K787Jota75
IN India—≈970 est.≈1 in 1.4M2—4
PE Peru—≈600 est.≈1 in 53K—Jota15
PH Philippines—≈340 est.≈1 in 318K—Jota8
NO Norway—2761 in 20K276—5
PT Portugal—≈240 est.≈1 in 43K—Jota22

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 — Nomes (census name API); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls). 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)

Jota is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi given name55 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Pakistan, Malaysia

    Languages: Hindi, Khmer, Chinese

    Also written Jat, Jata, Jot, Jaat, Zota

  • English surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Peru, United Kingdom

    Also written Jōta, Jóta

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written J̌ota

  • Indonesian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, Tanzania

    Also written Jotà

  • German surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Norway, United States

    Also written Jôtä, Jôtae

44 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)

Jota 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 Filipino, the name of the Latin-script letter J/j, in the Abecedario

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

  • In Finnish, iota (ninth letter in Greek alphabet)

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

  • In Polish, iota (Greek letter Ι, ι)

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

  • In got, romanization of 𐌾𐍉𐍄𐌰

    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)

1850190019502000Jota Tomás, b. 1898Jota Silvestre, b. 1922Jota Santiago, b. 1942Jota Moraes, b. 1948Jota Medeiros, b. 1958Jota Castro, b. 1965Jota González, b. 1972Jota Droh, b. 1983Diogo Jota, b. 1996

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 25 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Jota
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—2.4K#4,210
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—276#5,634
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—3#193,690

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 Jota come from?
A traditional popular dance of the Iberian peninsula with regional variations. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What does the name Jota mean?
In Portuguese, The name of the Latin-script letter J/j.
In which country does Jota have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 thousand people named Jota in Angola, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jota.
Where is Jota most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Jota is densest in Norway — about 1 in 20 thousand people — even though Angola holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Jota?
In Norway, the national register counted 276 people named Jota, about 1 in 20 thousand residents.
How common is Jota compared with other names?
In Angola, Jota is the 775th most common surname of 23,432 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Jota?

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

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, “Jota” — the 775th most common surname in Angola. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Jota parses inside a full name →