Yawa
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Yawa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country. Recorded meaning: A township in Karakax, Hotan prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 15K(inferred from the name graph)
- TGTogo≈1 in 3.1K
- KEKenya≈1 in 32K
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.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 87 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Togo, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A township in Karakax, Hotan prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Yawa 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | ≈3,800 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Yawa | 14 |
| TG Togo | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | 8 | Yawa | 9 |
| KE Kenya | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 32K | — | Yawa | 6 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 150K | — | Yawa | 18 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 40K | 483 | — | — |
| PG Papua New Guinea | ≈75 est. | ≈1 in 97K | 5 | — | 1 |
| BE Belgium | 2 | 1 in 5.9M | 2 | — | 3 |
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: nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; Journal Officiel — Liste definitive des candidats (legislatives 2024); PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Yawa 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.
Born on Thursday
as a nameThe book of African names
In Akan, Ak. = a^owa, brass. ayawd, Ak. earthen ("or wooden?) vessel, dish; s.kuku, asanka
as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)
In fj, deep-bellied fish that jumps along the surface of the sea: the milkfish, Chanos chanos
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
In Japanese, Rōmaji transcription of やわ
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In hil, devil; evil spirit; demon
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)
- Yawa Djigbodi Tséganb. 1971TGTogolese politician
- Yawa Kouiganb. 1975TGmayor of Atakpame (Ogou 1 municipality in Togo)
- Yawa Hansen-Quaob. 1983GHGhanaian social entrepreneur and feminist
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 13 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 483 | #1,009 |
| PG Papua New Guinea | PNG Election Results Database — candidate names (1972–2022) | — | 5 | #31 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 2 | #140,516 |
Reference works 1
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Yawa mean, and where does it come from?
- A township in Karakax, Hotan prefecture, Xinjiang autonomous region, China. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Yawa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.8 thousand people named Yawa in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled yawa.
- How common is the name Yawa?
- In Belgium, the national register counted 2 people named Yawa in 2008, about 1 in 5.9 million residents.
What do you want to know about Yawa?
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/yawaThe same 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), 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, “Yawa”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.