Challa
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Challa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in India than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Telugu చల్లా (callā). This surname is mostly found in Andhra Pradesh.
- INIndia1 in 67K(measured from records)
- NLNetherlands1 in 402K
- USUnited States1 in 415K
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.
- India (measured from records)
- Sources
- 81 (measured from records)
- 1 in 67K (inferred from the name graph)
19,721 people
Highest-authority source
India
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Borrowed from Telugu చల్లా (callā). This surname is mostly found in Andhra Pradesh.
Sources 1
Where in the world(measured from records)
Challa 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IN India | — | 19,721 | 1 in 67K | 20K | Challa | 10 |
| US United States | — | 802 | 1 in 415K | 1.5K | Challa | 26 |
| ES Spain | — | 56 | 1 in 893K | 56 | — | — |
| NL Netherlands | — | 43 | 1 in 402K | 43 | — | 2 |
| BR Brazil | — | 30 | 1 in 7.1M | 30 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 23 | 1 in 444K | 23 | — | — |
| FI Finland | — | 11 | 1 in 507K | 11 | — | — |
| BJ Benin | #314 | — | — | — | Challa | 4 |
19,721 people counted by Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Challa 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.
In arn, pot (cooking)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Quechua, sand
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Aymara, vcl coto; Manoxíllo de qniniu otrigo
as a wordVocabulario de la lengua aymara
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)
- Elise Menagé Challab. 1891NLDutch singer
- Fouad Challab. 1965film producer
- Siva Reddy ChallaINresearcher
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 26 sources across 15 countries.
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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 Challa mean, and where does it come from?
- Borrowed from Telugu చల్లా (callā). This surname is mostly found in Andhra Pradesh. Recorded by Wiktionary.
- In which country does Challa have the most bearers?
- In India, the national register counted about 20 thousand people named Challa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled challa.
- Where is Challa most common?
- Challa is densest in India, where the national register counts about 1 in 67 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Challa?
- In India, the national register counted 19,721 people named Challa, about 1 in 67 thousand residents.
- How common is Challa compared with other names?
- In Benin, Challa is the 314th most common surname of 5,339 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Challa?
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/challaThe 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, “Challa” — the 314th most common surname in Benin. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.