Salwa

given name · Latin script

Meaning: quail.’ (see surat al-Bagarah 2:57)

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

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

Salwa is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Argentina than in any other country. In Brazil it is the 3rd most common surname.

rarermore common
  • MAMorocco≈1 in 9K(inferred from the name graph)
  • PTPortugal≈1 in 101as Sousa
  • ARArgentina1 in 178as Sosa

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Salwa itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Argentina (measured from records)

256,043 named Sosa

#36 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

4 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
427 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 9.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Morocco, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

SouzaLatin(measured from records)
ซัลวาThai(measured from records)
СоузаCyrillic(measured from records)
ΣοουζαGreek(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Sousa in AR Argentina, PT Portugal, UY Uruguay and 2 more, Souza in BR Brazil, US United States and Silva in EC Ecuador.

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)

quail.’ (see surat al-Bagarah 2:57). Comp. Salwah 3,1, comfort

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of Muslim Names

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Salwa 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 Salwa is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AR Argentina—256,043as Sosa1 in 178256KSousa76
US United States—161,633as Silva1 in 2.1K163KSouza427
PT Portugal#6≈100,000 est.≈1 in 101listedSousa212
UY Uruguay—75,135as Sosa1 in 4575KSousa32
ES Spain#38448,968as Silva1 in 1K49KSousa135
EC Ecuador—47,379as Silva1 in 35747KSilva22
AO Angola#14≈41,000 est.≈1 in 7864Sousa66
MA Morocco—≈4,000 est.≈1 in 9K—Salwa75
BR Brazil#33,877as Sosa1 in 55K224KSouza310

256,043 people counted by RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national), counting the spelling sosa. 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); INEC — civil registry names; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Salwa is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Polish given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Salwa'

  • Spanish given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Argentina, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Sálwá, Sãlwą, Sàlwã

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Salwā, Salwá, Salwà

  • Swedish given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, United States

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Sàlwà, Sãlwà, Sãlwã

  • Ukrainian surname26 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Czechia

    Languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Czech

    Also written Сальва, Salva, Салва, Salvá, Šalva

  • Bangla given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, United States

    Also written Sàlwà

  • Czech given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Syria, United States, Tunisia

    Also written Šalwa, Šalwâ

35 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)

Salwa 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 Swedish, Salwa är ett arabiskt kvinnonamn som betyder ’tröst’.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In Arabic, quail, solace

    as a nameA Dictionary of Muslim Names

  • In Arabic, quail; solace; Qur'anic bird name

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • In Arabic, solace

    as a nameAfrican Muslim Names

  • ‘Consolation’, ‘solace’.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

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)

190019502000Saloua Raouda Choucair, b. 1916Salwa Bakr, b. 1949Salwa Al Katrib, b. 1953Salwa Nakkara, b. 1959Salwa Bugaighis, b. 1963Kendra Spears, b. 1988Salwa Houmsi, b. 1996Salwa Zarhane, b. 1996Salwa Eid Naser, b. 1998

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 Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 60 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Salwa
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20202.7K#6,043
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—790#3,357
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—693#1,761
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202259—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—56#59,447
BR BrazilBrasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA)—55#32,915
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)202528—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20207#6,043
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)20152—
ES Spain25,000 Nombres de Bebé (Vázquez de Haro, 2005)———

Reference works 7

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

Where does the name Salwa come from?
quail.’ (see surat al-Bagarah 2:57). Comp. Salwah 3,1, comfort Recorded by A Dictionary of Muslim Names.
How do you pronounce Salwa?
A machine transcription gives /səlwə/ (IPA) for Arabic.
Is Salwa a male or female name?
Salwa is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Salwa mean?
Recorded meaning: quail.’ (see surat al-Bagarah 2:57).
In which country does Salwa have the most bearers?
In Argentina, the national register counted about 256 thousand people named Sosa, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Salwa?
In Argentina, the national register counted 256,043 people named Sosa, about 1 in 178 residents.
How common is Salwa compared with other names?
In Brazil, Salwa is the 3rd most common surname of 424,864 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Salwa?

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

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, “Salwa” — the 3rd most common surname in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Salwa parses inside a full name →