Okpala
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɔkpala/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Okpala is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 1.2M(measured from records)
- NGNigeria≈1 in 32M
- KNSt. Kitts & Nevis1 in 54K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 167 (measured from records)
- 1 in 54K (inferred from the name graph)
278 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
St. Kitts & Nevis
measured from records inferred from the name graph
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)
Okpala 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 278 | 1 in 1.2M | 360 | Okpala | 167 |
| ES Spain | — | 32 | 1 in 1.6M | 32 | — | 7 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 17 | 1 in 494K | 17 | — | 4 |
| NG Nigeria | #672 | ≈7 est. | ≈1 in 32M | listed | Okpala | 84 |
| PL Poland | — | 6 | 1 in 6.4M | 4 | — | 1 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 1 | 1 in 54K | 1 | — | — |
| GY Guyana | — | 1 | 1 in 750K | 1 | — | 1 |
| MT Malta | #620 | — | — | — | Okpala | 1 |
278 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Chika Okpalab. 1950NGNigerian comedian
- Chika C. Okpalab. 1950NGactor
- Christian Okpalab. 1976NGNigerian association football player
- Kennedy Okpalab. 2004DEGerman-Nigerian football player
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 360 | #60,433 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 278 | #70,403 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 167 | #100,194 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 32 | #61,204 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 32 | #60,133 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 17 | #41,155 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 4 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 4 | #234,718 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2 | #374,252 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026 | 2026 | 1 | #181 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 1 | #624 |
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
- How do you pronounce Okpala?
- A machine transcription gives /ɔkpala/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Okpala?
- In the etymology graph, Opara, Okpara and Okwara are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Okpala have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 278 people named Okpala, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled okpala.
- Where is Okpala most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Okpala is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 54 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Okpala?
- In the United States, the national register counted 278 people named Okpala in 2010, about 1 in 1.2 million residents.
- How common is Okpala compared with other names?
- In Malta, Okpala is the 620th most common surname of 5,132 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Okpala?
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/okpalaThe 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, “Okpala” — the 620th most common surname in Malta. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.