Tavares

surname · Latin script

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

Tavares is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Cape Verde it is the 2nd most common surname. In Portuguese, recorded as seven minor places so called, first recorded in the forms Taavares and Thalavares. It is probably a deriv. of the personal name Talavus (see Talavera).

rarermore common
  • PTPortugal≈1 in 266(inferred from the name graph)
  • CVCape Verde≈1 in 700
  • AOAngola≈1 in 1.4K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈47,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
344 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 266 (inferred from the name graph)

Portugal, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

TavaresLatin(measured from records)
ТаваресCyrillic(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)

seven minor places so called, first recorded in the forms Taavares and Thalavares. It is probably a deriv. of the personal name Talavus (see Talavera). Vars.: Teal(l) Tear see McIntyre Tearall see Tyrrell

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

How Tavares is read(measured from records)

Tavares is one spelling over 4 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.

  • Portuguese78%

    seven minor places so called, first recorded in the forms Taavares and Thalavares. It is probably a deriv. of the personal name Talavus (see Talavera). Vars.: Teal(l) Tear see McIntyre Tearall see Tyrrell

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • English8.1%

    city. FL

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • French6.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Tavares in French.

  • Spanish5.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Tavares in Spanish.

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)

Tavares 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 Tavares is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈47,000 est.≈1 in 29K—Tavares10
PT Portugal#38≈39,000 est.≈1 in 266—Tavares182
AO Angola#37≈23,000 est.≈1 in 1.4K3Tavares53
US United States—12,7661 in 26K13KTavares344
FR France—≈9,300 est.≈1 in 7.3K595Tavares5
DO Dominican Republic#192≈4,800 est.≈1 in 2.2K—Tavares44
GW Guinea-Bissau—≈880 est.≈1 in 2.2K16K—16
CV Cape Verde#2≈830 est.≈1 in 70024Tavares54

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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; A comprehensive look at the most common surnames in Guinea-Bissau, compiled by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística de; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; CNE — Listas concorrentes (Eleicoes Legislativas 2026); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)

Tavares is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Taváres

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Tavarés

  • Arabic surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Egypt, Palestine, United Arab Emirates

    Also written Avareş, Avares, Ávares

  • Finnish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written T̥avares

58 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19401960198020002020Carlos Tavares, b. 1958Lio, b. 1962Júlio Tavares, b. 1988Stopira, b. 1988Chelsea Tavares, b. 1991Walter Tavares, b. 1992Andre Gomes, b. 1993Fabinho Tavares, b. 1993Nuno Tavares, b. 2000António Silva, b. 2003
  • Carlos Tavaresb. 1958PTPortuguese businessman
  • Liob. 1962PTnot in their usual nameBelgian actress and singer
  • Júlio Tavaresb. 1988CVCape Verdean association football player
  • Stopirab. 1988CVnot in their usual nameCape Verdean association football player
  • Chelsea Tavaresb. 1991USAmerican actress
  • Walter Tavaresb. 1992CVCape Verdean basketball player (born 1992)
  • Andre Gomesb. 1993PTnot in their usual namePortuguese association football player (born 1993)
  • Fabinho Tavaresb. 1993BRBrazilian association football player (born 1993)
  • Nuno Tavaresb. 2000PTPortuguese association football player
  • António Silvab. 2003PTnot in their usual namePortuguese footballer (born 2003)

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 46 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Tavares
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202013K#2,660
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,825
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#3,130
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1981616—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991595—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1971580—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1961185—
CV Cape VerdeCNE — Listas concorrentes (Eleicoes Legislativas 2026)202624#2
AO AngolaWikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names—3#59
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

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 Tavares mean, and where does it come from?
seven minor places so called, first recorded in the forms Taavares and Thalavares. It is probably a deriv. of the personal name Talavus (see Talavera). Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
In which country does Tavares have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 47 thousand people named Tavares in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tavares.
How common is the name Tavares?
In the United States, the national register counted 12,766 people named Tavares in 2010, about 1 in 26 thousand residents.
How common is Tavares compared with other names?
In Cape Verde, Tavares is the 2nd most common surname of 2,258 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tavares

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Tavares” — the 2nd most common surname in Cape Verde. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Tavares parses inside a full name →