Osawa

surname · Latin script

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

/oʊˈsɑwə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Osawa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Japan than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Japanese 大沢 (Ōsawa).

rarermore common
  • JPJapan≈1 in 4.3K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 1.5M
  • IEIreland≈1 in 353K

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.

Japan (inferred from the name graph)

≈29,000 people, est.

Sources
124 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 4.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Japan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Borrowed from Japanese 大沢 (Ōsawa).

Sources 1

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Osawa 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 Osawa is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
JP Japan#869≈29,000 est.≈1 in 4.3K—Osawa124
BR Brazil—4441 in 477K444——
CN China—≈240 est.≈1 in 5.8M—Osawa7
US United States—2161 in 1.5M250Osawa102
PH Philippines—≈48 est.≈1 in 2.3M—Osawa13
IE Ireland—≈15 est.≈1 in 353K—Osawa1
BE Belgium—131 in 902K13—4
SG Singapore—≈11 est.≈1 in 582K—Osawa6

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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Osawa is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Mexico, Argentina

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Ōsawa

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Ôsawa, Ōsawa

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium

    Also written Ôsawa, Ōsawa

  • Thai surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written Ozawa, โอซาว่า, โอซาวา, โอซาวะ, Ohzawa

28 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)

Osawa 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.

  • In pwm, spouse

    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)

19201940196019802000Yoshimi Ōsawa, b. 1926Masaaki Ōsawa, b. 1946Hideyuki Ōsawa, b. 1952Arimasa Osawa, b. 1956Yoshiyuki Ohsawa, b. 1957Itsumi Osawa, b. 1966Shin'ichi Ōsawa, b. 1967Takao Ōsawa, b. 1968Chiaki Ōsawa, b. 1981Hikaru Ōsawa, b. 1995

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)

FormalOsawa様Dear Osawa-san, (English)
Informalこんにちは、OsawaさんHi Osawa, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 16 sources across 9 countries.

Official registers attesting Osawa
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—444#18,942
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020250#81,574
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000245#73,659
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010216#86,314
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)200813#62,153
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • 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 Osawa mean, and where does it come from?
Borrowed from Japanese 大沢 (Ōsawa). Recorded by Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Osawa?
A machine transcription gives /oʊˈsɑwə/ (IPA) for Japanese.
In which country does Osawa have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 29 thousand people named Osawa in Japan, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled osawa.
How common is the name Osawa?
In Brazil, the national register counted 444 people named Osawa, about 1 in 477 thousand residents.
How common is Osawa compared with other names?
In Japan, Osawa is the 869th most common surname of 142,159 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Osawa?

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

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, “Osawa” — the 869th most common surname in Japan. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Osawa parses inside a full name →