Ponce
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A man living off another's earnings, especially a woman's
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ponθe/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ponce is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country, where it is the 59th most common surname.
- HNHonduras≈1 in 329(inferred from the name graph)
- ECEcuador1 in 340
- ARArgentina1 in 444
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)
- #601 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 412 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 329 (inferred from the name graph)
102,331 people
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Honduras, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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 man living off another's earnings, especially a woman's.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ponce 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | #59 | 102,331 | 1 in 444 | 102K | Ponce | 137 |
| EC Ecuador | #48 | 49,694 | 1 in 340 | 50K | Ponce | 94 |
| US United States | — | 49,549 | 1 in 6.7K | 50K | Ponce | 412 |
| PH Philippines | #312 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Ponce | 89 |
| PE Peru | #106 | ≈40,000 est. | ≈1 in 801 | — | Ponce | 120 |
| HN Honduras | #35 | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 329 | — | Ponce | 62 |
| CL Chile | #126 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 755 | — | Ponce | 133 |
102,331 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); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; INEC — civil registry names. 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)
Ponce is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Manuel Mari'a, Mexican composer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, city, Puerto Rico
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Nacido en quinto lugar
as a name25,000 nombres de bebé. La mejor guía para escoger el nombre adecuado
In Italian, punch (beverage)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In French, pumice
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)
- José María Vargasb. 1786VEnot in their usual namePresident of Venezuela from 1835–1836
- Manuel María Ponceb. 1886MXMexican composer (1886–1948)
- Pere Ponceb. 1964ESSpanish actor
- Carlos Ponceb. 1972USPuerto Rican actor
- Waldo Ponceb. 1982CLChilean footballer
- Marco Pappab. 1987GTnot in their usual nameGuatemalan footballer
- Miguel Ángel Ponceb. 1989MXMexican association football player
- Denia Caballerob. 1990CUnot in their usual nameCuban discus thrower
- Michelle Veintimillab. 1992USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Ezequiel Ponceb. 1997ARArgentine association 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 46 sources across 26 countries.
Reference works 6
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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 Ponce mean, and where does it come from?
- A man living off another's earnings, especially a woman's. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Ponce?
- A machine transcription gives /ponθe/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Ponce have the most bearers?
- In Argentina, the national register counted about 102 thousand people named Ponce, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ponce.
- How common is the name Ponce?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 102,331 people named Ponce, about 1 in 444 residents.
- How common is Ponce compared with other names?
- In Argentina, Ponce is the 59th most common surname of 398,256 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ponce?
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/ponceThe 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, “Ponce” — the 59th most common surname in Argentina. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.