Zama
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Zama is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country. In English, recorded as Synonym of zama-zama.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 7.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.4M
- CMCameroon≈1 in 25K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 114 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈8,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
Synonym of zama-zama.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
How Zama is read(measured from records)
Zama 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.
- English21%
Synonym of zama-zama.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
ancient town, Africa
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Hindi9.9%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Zama in Hindi.
- Swahili6.7%
time, period
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish5.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Zama 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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Zama 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 | ≈8,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.1K | — | Zama | 60 |
| CM Cameroon | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Zama | 5 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | ≈820 est. | ≈1 in 34K | 284 | — | — |
| IT Italy | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 94K | listed | Zama | 16 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 436K | listed | Zama | 12 |
| US United States | 136 | 1 in 2.4M | 190 | Zama | 114 |
| CF Central African Republic | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 49K | 25 | — | — |
| UY Uruguay | 60 | 1 in 56K | 60 | — | — |
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; nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); the xinhua-italian-manual register; The page provides a list of common surnames in Central African Republic along with the number of people bearing each nam. 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)
Zama 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.
Determination.
as a nameThe African book of names
Try.
as a nameThe African book of names
In dag, 1. oysters 2. a multitude 3. congregation 4. assembly
as a wordDagbani Dictionary CD
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)
- Giuseppe Zama Mellinib. 1788ITItalian priest and theologian (1788-1838)
- Giovanna Zamab. 1926ITItalian librarian (1926-1992)
- Francis Zamab. 1956Soloman politician
- Fujio ZamaJPJapanese voice actor
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.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 284 | #1,597 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 190 | #101,282 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 136 | #126,018 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 60 | — |
| CF Central African Republic | ANE — Liste provisoire des candidats (legislatives & regionales 2025) | 2025 | 1 | #7 |
| IT Italy | 意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru 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)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Zama mean, and where does it come from?
- Synonym of zama-zama. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Zama have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 8.0 thousand people named Zama in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zama.
- How common is the name Zama?
- In the United States, the national register counted 136 people named Zama in 2010, about 1 in 2.4 million residents.
What do you want to know about Zama?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/zamaThe 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, “Zama”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.