Roa
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: synonym of roda
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/roa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Roa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Colombia than in any other country.
- PYParaguay≈1 in 631(inferred from the name graph)
- VEVenezuela≈1 in 1.1K
- COColombia≈1 in 1.3K
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.
- Colombia (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 288 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 631 (inferred from the name graph)
≈37,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Paraguay, 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)
Initialism of Raman optical activity.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Roa is read(measured from records)
Roa is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.
- Spanish80%
synonym of roda
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Tunisie; Rouen, France
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
- English10%
Initialism of Raman optical activity.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Roa 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO Colombia | #186 | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 40 | Roa | 151 |
| VE Venezuela | #184 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Roa | 85 |
| PH Philippines | #610 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | — | Roa | 71 |
| AR Argentina | #436 | 14,451 | 1 in 3.1K | 14K | Roa | 85 |
| CL Chile | #176 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | 1 | Roa | 112 |
| PY Paraguay | #131 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 631 | — | Roa | 44 |
| DO Dominican Republic | #145 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Roa | 53 |
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: SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); the co-datosgov-candidates 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Roa is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In cdo, to emit breath, heated, suffocated as in a large crowd. to steam, to warm up. O#*(#4) to warm food. OA blistered by rising steam. OR steam it done, (ci)
as a wordDictionary of the Foochow Dialect
In enm, alternative form of ro (“roe deer”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In rar, long, as of time; delayed; length, as of time; delay; length, as of measurement; duration, extent, etc.
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
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)
- Soledad Duterteb. 1916PHnot in their usual nameFilipina teacher and activist (1916-2012)
- Augusto Roa Bastosb. 1917PYParaguayan writer (1917–2005)
- Gustavo Nieto Roab. 1942COColombian film director
- Gabriel Gonzálezb. 1942PYnot in their usual nameformer Paraguayan football referee
- Roberto Fernándezb. 1956PYnot in their usual nameParaguayan association football player (1954-)
- Tamara Sujúb. 1966VEnot in their usual nameVenezuelan lawyer and activist
- Carlos Roab. 1969ARArgentine footballer
- Eduardo Hurtadob. 1969ECnot in their usual nameEcuadorian footballer
- Fernanda Pinillab. 1993CLnot in their usual nameChilean footballer
- Nicolás Benedettib. 1997COnot in their usual nameColombian footballer
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 52 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 14K | — |
| CO Colombia | Colombia — Función Pública SIGEP II public-servant name corpus (datos.gov.co) | — | 40 | #76 |
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 Roa?
- A machine transcription gives /roa/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Where does the name Roa come from?
- Initialism of Raman optical activity. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What does the name Roa mean?
- In Spanish, synonym of roda
- In which country does Roa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 37 thousand people named Roa in Colombia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled roa.
- How common is the name Roa?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 14,451 people named Roa, about 1 in 3.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Roa compared with other names?
- In Colombia, Roa is the 186th most common surname of 144,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Roa?
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/roaThe 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, “Roa” — the 186th most common surname in Colombia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.