Smadja
surname · Latin script
Meaning: sour, sad
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Smadja is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 35K(inferred from the name graph)
- TNTunisia≈1 in 22K
- ILIsrael≈1 in 55K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 216 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 22K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,900 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Tunisia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
sour, sad
Sources 1
- Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Smadja 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 35K | 271 | Smadja | 216 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Smadja | 4 |
| IL Israel | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Smadja | 17 |
| US United States | ≈56 est. | ≈1 in 6M | listed | Smadja | 71 |
| CH Switzerland | 38 | 1 in 221K | 38 | Smadja | 6 |
| CY Cyprus | ≈6 est. | ≈1 in 218K | — | Smadja | 2 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Juliette Smaja Zérahb. 1891TNnot in their usual nameTunisian lawyer
- Henri Smadjab. 1897FRFrench businessman and press boss (1897–1974)
- Maurice Smadjab. 1932TNIsraeli judoka
- Isabelle Balkanyb. 1947FRnot in their usual nameFrench politician and journalist
- Dominique Sewaneb. 1950FRnot in their usual nameFrench anthropologist
- Aryeh Avraham Smadjab. 1965ILIsraeli rabbi
- Smadjb. 1966FRnot in their usual nameFrench musician
- Oren Smadjab. 1970ILIsraeli judoka
- Kev Adamsb. 1991FRnot in their usual nameFrench humorist and actor
- Catherine SmadjaFRFrench official
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 10 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 304 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 271 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 244 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 227 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 106 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 38 | #22,915 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 27 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 14 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 7 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 5 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 2 | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 Smadja mean, and where does it come from?
- sour, sad Recorded by Dicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,….
- In which country does Smadja have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.9 thousand people named Smadja in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled smadja.
- How common is the name Smadja?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 38 people named Smadja in 2024, about 1 in 221 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Smadja?
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/smadjaThe 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, “Smadja”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.