Tapia
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: by a mud wall, Sp. tapia (of uncertain origin), or, more commonly, a habitation name from one of the places named with this word, in the provinces of Burgos, Leon, and Oviedo. Var.: Tapias
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Tapia is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Chile than in any other country, where it is the 31st most common surname.
- CLChile≈1 in 320(inferred from the name graph)
- ECEcuador1 in 444
- PEPeru≈1 in 771
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.
- Chile (inferred from the name graph)
- #624 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 397 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 320 (inferred from the name graph)
≈57,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
Chile, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
by a mud wall, Sp. tapia (of uncertain origin), or, more commonly, a habitation name from one of the places named with this word, in the provinces of Burgos, Leon, and Oviedo. Var.: Tapias. Cogns.: Cat.: Tapia(s), Tapies. Prov.: Tapie, Latapie; Tapie.
Sources 1
- A dictionary of surnames
How Tapia is read(measured from records)
Tapia 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.
- Spanish81%
by a mud wall, Sp. tapia (of uncertain origin), or, more commonly, a habitation name from one of the places named with this word, in the provinces of Burgos, Leon, and Oviedo. Var.: Tapias. Cogns.: Cat.: Tapia(s), Tapies. Prov.: Tapie, Latapie; Tapie.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
adobe
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English11%
A topographic surname from Basque, denoting someone from Tapia de Casariego in Asturias.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Tapia 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CL Chile | #31 | ≈57,000 est. | ≈1 in 320 | — | Tapia | 166 |
| US United States | — | 52,651 | 1 in 6.3K | 53K | Tapia | 397 |
| AR Argentina | #161 | 43,440 | 1 in 1K | 43K | Tapia | 110 |
| PE Peru | #98 | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 771 | — | Tapia | 118 |
| EC Ecuador | #47 | 38,095 | 1 in 444 | 38K | Tapia | 96 |
| BO Bolivia | — | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 502 | — | Tapia | 71 |
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)
Tapia 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.
Tapia, Spain
as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…
In Galician, clay wall
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Guarani, wall
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 Moncadab. 1870NInot in their usual namePresident of Nicaragua (1870-1945)
- Ramón Tapiab. 1932CLboxer (1932-1984)
- Pilar Roldánb. 1939MXnot in their usual nameMexican fencer
- Luis Ernesto Tapiab. 1944PAPanamanian footballer (1944–2024)
- Antonio Tapiab. 1959ESSpanish football manager
- Nelson Tapiab. 1966CLChilean footballer
- Claudio Tapiab. 1967ARPresident of the Argentinian Football Association
- La Parkab. 1971MXnot in their usual nameMexican professional wrestler
- Ángelo Sagalb. 1993CLnot in their usual nameChilean association football player
- Renato Tapiab. 1995PEPeruvian 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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 35 sources across 22 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 Tapia mean, and where does it come from?
- by a mud wall, Sp. tapia (of uncertain origin), or, more commonly, a habitation name from one of the places named with this word, in the provinces of Burgos, Leon, and Oviedo. Var.: Tapias. Recorded by A dictionary of surnames.
- In which country does Tapia have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 57 thousand people named Tapia in Chile, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tapia.
- How common is the name Tapia?
- In the United States, the national register counted 52,651 people named Tapia in 2010, about 1 in 6.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Tapia compared with other names?
- In Chile, Tapia is the 31st most common surname of 94,777 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tapia?
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/tapiaThe 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, “Tapia” — the 31st most common surname in Chile. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.