Suwa
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/suwə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Suwa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country. In India it is the 38th most common given name.
- KWKuwait≈1 in 1.7Kas Siva(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 2.4Kas Siva
- MYMalaysia≈1 in 3.5Kas Siva
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 Suwa 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.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- #504 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 286 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 836 (inferred from the name graph)
≈36,000 named Shiva, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Nepal, est., as Shiva
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Shiv in IN India, QA Qatar, ID Indonesia, Siva in MY Malaysia, KW Kuwait, SG Singapore, Shiva in US United States, NP Nepal and Shibu in BD Bangladesh.
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
No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Suwa 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | — | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 836 | 1 | Shiva | 70 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | listed | Shiv | 14 |
| MY Malaysia | #651 | ≈9,200 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | — | Siva | 66 |
| BD Bangladesh | — | ≈8,500 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Shibu | 31 |
| US United States | — | 2,982as Shiva | 1 in 112K | 2.2K | Shiva | 286 |
| SG Singapore | #235 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Siva | 65 |
| KW Kuwait | #83 | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Siva | 19 |
| QA Qatar | #222 | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Shiv | 21 |
| IN India | #38 | — | — | 18K | Shiv | 251 |
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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Suwa is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In bik, calamondin (Citrus × microcarpa, syn. × Citrofortunella mitis)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Polish, third-person singular present of suwać
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of sowe
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In duo, pomelo
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)
- Kumatarō Suwab. 1890JPJapanese Christian missionary
- Hiroshi Suwab. 1915JPJapanese businessperson (1915-1989)
- Yū Suwab. 1929JPJapanese poet
- Suwa Yasuob. 1947JPJapanese jurist-consultant
- John Eijirō Suwab. 1947JPJapanese Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
- Shinji Suwab. 1952JPJapanese actor
- Taro Suwab. 1954JPJapanese actor and voice actor
- Nobuhiro Suwab. 1960JPJapanese film director
- Toshinari Suwab. 1977JPJapanese long-distance runner (track and field), coach
- Ayaka Suwab. 1988JPJapanese voice actress
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 13 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 132 | #121,058 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 122 | #137,327 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 110 | #149,446 |
| IN India | Instate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls | — | 3 | #23,065 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
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 Suwa?
- A machine transcription gives /suwə/ (IPA) for Japanese.
- In which country does Suwa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 36 thousand people named Shiva in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Suwa?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,982 people named Shiva in 2020, about 1 in 112 thousand residents.
- How common is Suwa compared with other names?
- In India, Suwa is the 38th most common given name of 3,760,348 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Suwa?
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/suwaThe 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, “Suwa” — the 38th most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.