Penalva

surname · Latin script

Meaning: a toponym indicating the presence of a white crag

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

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

Penalva is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • ARArgentina1 in 11K(measured from records)
  • ESSpain1 in 26K
  • PEPeru≈1 in 128K

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.

Argentina (measured from records)

4,299 people

Sources
133 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 6.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Uruguay

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Peñalva in AR Argentina, PE Peru, UY Uruguay and 1 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

a toponym indicating the presence of a white crag

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Penalva 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 Penalva is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AR Argentina#9784,2991 in 11K4.3KPeñalva37
ES Spain—1,9451 in 26K1.9KPenalva98
BR Brazil—8591 in 246K859Penalva71
UY Uruguay—5121 in 6.6K512Peñalva14
FR France—≈370 est.≈1 in 186K67Penalva133
PE Peru—≈250 est.≈1 in 128K—Peñalva19
HN Honduras—≈100 est.≈1 in 93K—Peñalva8

4,299 people counted by RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)

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

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Peñalva

  • Hindi surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain

    Also written Peñalva

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain

    Also written Peñalva

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, Italy

    Also written Peñalva

24 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19701980Emerson Penalva, b. 1973Diego Penalva, b. 1976David Penalva, b. 1980

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)

FormalEstimado/a Penalva,Dear Penalva, (English)
InformalEstimado/a Penalva,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 11 sources across 8 countries.

Official registers attesting Penalva
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—1.9K#2,475
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—1.9K#2,475
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—859#10,615
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—512—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196174—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199167—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)197150—
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—48—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198136—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)194125—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195121—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)193121—

Reference works 2

  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Penalva mean, and where does it come from?
a toponym indicating the presence of a white crag Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Penalva?
A machine transcription gives /penalβa/ (IPA) for Spanish.
In which country does Penalva have the most bearers?
In Argentina, the national register counted about 4.3 thousand people named Penalva, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled peñalva.
Where is Penalva most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Penalva is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 6.6 thousand people — even though Argentina holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Penalva?
In Argentina, the national register counted 4,299 people named Penalva, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
How common is Penalva compared with other names?
In Argentina, Penalva is the 978th most common surname of 398,256 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Penalva?

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

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, “Penalva” — the 978th most common surname in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Penalva parses inside a full name →