Buka
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The short introduction to a gamelan piece, generally played by a single instrument in a free rhythm, with the kendhang coming in on the last few notes to set the tempo
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/buːka/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Buka is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country.
- CZCzechia1 in 141K(measured from records)
- UYUruguay1 in 169K
- FIFinland1 in 186K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Poland (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 20 (measured from records)
- 1 in 141K (inferred from the name graph)
131 people, 2026
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
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)
The short introduction to a gamelan piece, generally played by a single instrument in a free rhythm, with the kendhang coming in on the last few notes to set the tempo.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Buka is read(measured from records)
Buka is one spelling over 7 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.
- English28%
The short introduction to a gamelan piece, generally played by a single instrument in a free rhythm, with the kendhang coming in on the last few notes to set the tempo.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Turkish12%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Buka in Turkish.
- Swahili11%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Buka in Swahili.
- Hindi9.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Buka in Hindi.
- Polish6.7%
genitive singular of buk
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Indonesian6.2%
open (actively conducting or prepared to conduct business)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
to open (to make something accessible)
as a wordrecorded as Malaykaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French6.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Buka in French.
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)
Buka 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.
131 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames), 2026. 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: MVČR — living population register 2017; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Buka 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 lua, to marry, wed. This word is used only by the man. See note under marry.
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
In lua, to fly, take flight or rise in flight (as bird).
as a wordGrammar and Dictionary of the Buluba-Lulua Language
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)
- Minna Bukab. 1862Holocaust victim (born 1862)
- Betty Bukab. 1877PLholocaust victim, b. 1877-07-20
- Teuta BukaALAlbanian translator
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)
Attested in 25 sources across 16 countries.
Reference works 4
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Ismlar.com — Uzbek given-name dictionary (meanings, gender, origin)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Buka mean, and where does it come from?
- The short introduction to a gamelan piece, generally played by a single instrument in a free rhythm, with the kendhang coming in on the last few notes to set the tempo. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Buka?
- A machine transcription gives /buːka/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Buka have the most bearers?
- In Poland, the national register counted about 131 people named Buka, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled buka.
- Where is Buka most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Buka is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 141 thousand people — even though Poland holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Buka?
- In Poland, the national register counted 131 people named Buka in 2026, about 1 in 292 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Buka?
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/bukaThe 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, “Buka”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.