Nyonya
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in Indonesian: A Nyonya; a female Peranakan
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nyonya is a given name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Nigeria.
- Nigeria (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 2 (measured from records)
no count published
Reference-verified
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
to suck (to work the lips and tongue on)
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
How Nyonya is read(measured from records)
Nyonya is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- Indonesian63%
A Nyonya; a female Peranakan.
as a wordrecorded as Malaykaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
madam
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Swahili19%
to suck (to work the lips and tongue on)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English10%
A female Peranakan
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Nyonya counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | — | listed | — |
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: the african-book-names-hodari-2003 register. 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)
Nyonya is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
To suck the breast.
as a nameThe African book of names
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.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 1 sources across 1 country.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NG Nigeria | The African Book of Names (Hodari, 2003) | — | — | — |
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Nyonya come from?
- to suck (to work the lips and tongue on) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- Is Nyonya a male or female name?
- Nyonya is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Nyonya mean?
- In Indonesian, A Nyonya; a female Peranakan.
- In which country does Nyonya have the most bearers?
- Nyonya is most frequently recorded in Nigeria.
What do you want to know about Nyonya?
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/nyonyaThe 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, “Nyonya”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.