Zavala
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname from Spanish [in turn from Basque]
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 18 countries · latest register: INEC, 2024
/saˈbala/(recorded in a dictionary) Spanish · from Wiktionary
Zavala is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Mexico than in any other country. In Honduras it is the 74th most common surname.
- HNHonduras≈1 in 490(inferred from the name graph)
- MXMexico≈1 in 760
- SVEl Salvador≈1 in 930
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Mexico (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 389 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 493 (inferred from the name graph)
≈170,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Honduras, 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)A surname from Spanish [in turn from Basque].
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Zavala 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MX Mexico | #121 | ≈170,000 est. | ≈1 in 758 | 3K | Zavala | 221 |
| US United States | — | 51,153 | 1 in 6.5K | 51K | Zavala | 389 |
| PE Peru | #204 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Zavala | 99 |
| HN Honduras | #74 | ≈22,000 est. | ≈1 in 493 | — | Zavala | 55 |
| EC Ecuador | #313 | 11,762 | 1 in 1.4K | 12K | Zavala | 63 |
| SV El Salvador | #162 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 927 | — | Zavala | 45 |
| NI Nicaragua | #157 | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | — | Zavala | 31 |
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: RENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset); 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)Zavala 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 English, Zavan [Zaavan]
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, county, TX
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In Serbo-Croatian, a pile of hay
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)- Lorenzo de Zavalab. 1788MX19th-century Mexican politician (1788-1836)
- Miguel García Granadosb. 1809GTnot in their usual nameGuatemalan politician (1809-1878)
- Joaquín Zavalab. 1835NIPresident of Nicaragua (1835-1906)
- María Guadalupe García Zavalab. 1878MXMexican Catholic nun and saint (1878-1963)
- Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortizb. 1905ARArgentinian diplomat, lawyer, and politician (1905-1982)
- Andrés Allamandb. 1956CLnot in their usual nameChilean politician
- Fernando Zavalab. 1971PEPeruvian economist and politician
- África Zavalab. 1985MXMexican actress and model
- Jesús Eduardo Zavalab. 1987MXMexican footballer
- Aremi Fuentesb. 1993MXnot in their usual nameMexican weightlifter
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)28 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 18 countries.
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 Zavala mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname from Spanish [in turn from Basque]. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Zavala?
- It depends on the language: in Spanish /saˈbala/ (Wiktionary); in English /səˈvɑː.lə/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Zavala have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 173 thousand people named Zavala in Mexico, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zavala.
- How common is the name Zavala?
- In the United States, the national register counted 51,153 people named Zavala in 2010, about 1 in 6.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Zavala compared with other names?
- In Mexico, Zavala is the 121st most common surname of 206,803 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Zavala?
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/zavalaThe 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, “Zavala” — the 121st most common surname in Mexico. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.