Ngoma

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Ngoma is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Malawi than in any other country. In Congo - Kinshasa it is the most common surname.

rarermore common
  • ZMZambia≈1 in 12K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CDCongo - Kinshasa≈1 in 39K
  • TZTanzania≈1 in 58K

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.

Malawi (inferred from the name graph)

≈3,100 people, est.

Sources
176 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 5.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Congo - Brazzaville, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ngoma 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 Ngoma is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MW Malawi#193≈3,100 est.≈1 in 6.7K1Ngoma18
CD Congo - Kinshasa#1≈2,600 est.≈1 in 39K3Ngoma23
ZM Zambia#27≈1,500 est.≈1 in 12K90KNgoma46
TZ Tanzania#419≈1,000 est.≈1 in 58K—Ngoma27
CG Congo - Brazzaville#1≈960 est.≈1 in 5.5K—Ngoma21
US United States—1491 in 2.2M329Ngoma105

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: Zambia top-100 surnames (surnam.es); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)

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

  • English surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in South Africa, United States, Zambia, Congo - Kinshasa

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Ng'Oma, N'Goma

  • Portuguese surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Congo - Kinshasa, Angola, United States, South Africa

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written N'Goma

42 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)

Ngoma is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In umb, a kind of mushroom. *Nia% v. a., vacuate the faeces

    as a wordVocabulary of the Umbundu Language

  • In English, A large social dancing event in parts of Africa.

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

  • In Shona, drum (musical instrument)

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

  • In ki, spirit of the deceased

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

  • In Southern Sotho, to clasp, to buckle

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

  • In tum, maize, corn

    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)

1960198020002020Kool Matopé, b. 1965Leonard Ngoma, b. 1979Jean-Willy Ngoma, b. 1990Fabrice Ngoma, b. 1994Serge Ngoma, b. 2005

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 26 sources across 18 countries.

Official registers attesting Ngoma
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ZM ZambiaZambia top-100 surnames (surnam.es)—90K#21
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020329#65,168
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010149#116,829
ZM ZambiaECZ 2021 Councillor Elections — candidate results202112#31
CD Congo - KinshasaWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—3#32
MW MalawiWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—1#77
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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

In which country does Ngoma have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 3.1 thousand people named Ngoma in Malawi, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ngoma.
How common is the name Ngoma?
In the United States, the national register counted 149 people named Ngoma in 2010, about 1 in 2.2 million residents.
How common is Ngoma compared with other names?
In Malawi, Ngoma is the 193rd most common surname of 6,972 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Ngoma?

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

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, “Ngoma” — the 193rd most common surname in Malawi. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ngoma parses inside a full name →