Zema

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/zimə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Zema is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Congo - Kinshasa than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 1.1M(measured from records)
  • BSBahamas≈1 in 57K
  • CDCongo - Kinshasa≈1 in 68K

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.

Congo - Kinshasa (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,500 people, est.

Sources
117 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 57K (inferred from the name graph)

Bahamas, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Sources 1

Where in the world(measured from records)

Zema 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 Zema is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CD Congo - Kinshasa≈1,500 est.≈1 in 68K—Zema1
IT Italy≈890 est.≈1 in 70KlistedZema19
US United States2951 in 1.1M315Zema117
BR Brazil1461 in 1.5M146—1
FR France≈150 est.≈1 in 468K15——
AZ Azerbaijan≈65 est.≈1 in 156K1—3
BS Bahamas≈6 est.≈1 in 57K—Zema1

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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); the xinhua-italian-manual register; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Azerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics. 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)

Zema is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Cameroon

    Also written Zéma, Zèma, Zèmå, Zëma, Zémâ

  • Russian given name15 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish

    Also written Зема, Зёма, Зэма, Żema, Zyoma

  • Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Kenya, Russia, Canada

    Also written Zëma

  • Turkish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Zéma

  • Amharic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ethiopia, United States

    Also written ዜማ, ዘማ

36 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Zema is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Latin, cooking utensil, saucepan

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Basque, "Hueco o defecto de las tablas o vigas aserradas" Izeta BHizt2. .

    as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia

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)

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)

FormalDear Zema,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 26 sources across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Zema
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020315#67,529
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000313#60,230
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010295#66,931
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—146#47,410
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198129—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196125—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195119—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)197117—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199115—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19413—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19312—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19112—

Reference works 5

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

How do you pronounce Zema?
A machine transcription gives /zimə/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Zema have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named Zema in Congo - Kinshasa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zema.
How common is the name Zema?
In the United States, the national register counted 295 people named Zema in 2010, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.

What do you want to know about Zema?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/zema

The 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, “Zema”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Zema parses inside a full name →