Pica

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • PHPhilippines≈1 in 62K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 191K
  • UYUruguay1 in 7.7K

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.

Italy (inferred from the name graph)

≈3,300 people, est.

Sources
252 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 7.7K (inferred from the name graph)

Uruguay

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

How Pica is read(measured from records)

Pica 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.

  • English53%

    A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand.

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

  • Spanish26%

    pike, lance

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

  • Italian6.3%

    magpie

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

    do lat. pica, pega; sobrenome ligado a pessoa faladeira ou maledicente.

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Pica 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 Pica is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IT Italy—≈3,300 est.≈1 in 19KlistedPica40
PH Philippines—≈1,800 est.≈1 in 62K—Pica32
US United States—1,7411 in 191K1.7KPica252
UY Uruguay—4391 in 7.7K439——
EG Egypt—≈400 est.≈1 in 263K—Pica8
PR Puerto Rico#892≈160 est.≈1 in 21K—Pica4
CH Switzerland—1061 in 79K106—5

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; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); the italian-surnames-defelice-1978 register; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)

Pica is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Mexico, Argentina, United States, Philippines

    Languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese

    Also written Piça, Picá, Picã, Pįčą, Pîcã

  • Italian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States, Philippines, Canada

    Also written Pìca, Pïcä

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, Philippines, Italy

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Pică

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Pică

  • Polish surname17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain

    Languages: Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian

    Also written Пича, Пица, Pića, Pitsa, Piča

  • Romanian surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Romania, United States, Philippines, Spain

    Also written Pică, Pîcă, Pičä, Pîca

37 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)

Pica is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Romanian, vb., cf. si blg. nnunca penis" decopil. 1. Pisca, M. (M Put 205) ; Pisculescu act. 2. Pisceiu (C Stef). 3. Piscov caltiras 1650 (Sd IV 38). 4. Picicu din Birsa (Sd cf. blg. nmuca rusinea femeii" (Weig. Worterbuch. 5. Chisca-baba t. (Sd VII 280) < vb. a pisca. 6. Piscliresti s. < subst. piscar (un. peste) v. Tipar.

    as a nameDictionar Onomastic Rominesc

  • In zlw-opl, fodder, food, nourishment

    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)

18001850190019502000Giuseppe Pica, b. 1813Vittorio Pica, b. 1864Tina Pica, b. 1884Agnoldomenico Pica, b. 1907Claudio Villa, b. 1926Massimo Pica Ciamarra, b. 1937Salvatore Pica, b. 1939Pierre Pica, b. 1951Leonardo Pica Ciamarra, b. 1965Amalia Pica, b. 1978

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)

FormalDear Pica,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 28 sources across 18 countries.

Official registers attesting Pica
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.7K#16,502
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.7K#16,617
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020001.7K#16,092
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—439—
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024106#10,554
IT ItalyDizionario dei Cognomi Italiani (De Felice, 1978)———
IT Italy意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary

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 Pica mean, and where does it come from?
A disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances, such as chalk, clay, dirt, ice, or sand. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Pica?
In the etymology graph, Picar is a form of the same name in other languages.
How do you pronounce Pica?
A machine transcription gives /paɪkə/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Pica have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 3.3 thousand people named Pica in Italy, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pica.
Where is Pica most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Pica is densest in Uruguay — about 1 in 7.7 thousand people — even though Italy holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Pica?
In the United States, the national register counted 1,741 people named Pica in 2010, about 1 in 191 thousand residents.
How common is Pica compared with other names?
In Puerto Rico, Pica is the 892nd most common surname of 8,205 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Pica?

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

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, “Pica” — the 892nd most common surname in Puerto Rico. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Pica parses inside a full name →