Kovács

surname · Latin script

Meaning: a surname originating as an occupation for a smith; one of the most common surnames in Hungary

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

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

Kovács is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Hungary than in any other country, where it is the 3rd most common surname.

rarermore common
  • HUHungary≈1 in 301(inferred from the name graph)
  • SKSlovakia1 in 1.1K
  • RORomania≈1 in 2.7K

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.

Hungary (inferred from the name graph)

≈33,000 people, est.

Sources
288 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 301 (inferred from the name graph)

Hungary, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Kovacs in HU Hungary, US United States, RO Romania and 1 more.

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 originating as an occupation for a smith; one of the most common surnames in Hungary.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kovács 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 Kovács is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
HU Hungary#3≈33,000 est.≈1 in 301203KKovacs221
US United States—9,0721 in 37K9.1KKovacs288
RO Romania#73≈8,000 est.≈1 in 2.7K—Kovacs70
SK Slovakia#244,8321 in 1.1K4.8KKovács64
CA Canada—≈2,300 est.≈1 in 17K—Kovacs93
CH Switzerland—5451 in 15K545Kovács55

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: Nyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kovács is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Kovacs, Kovàcs, Koväcs, Kovåcs, Kovãcs

  • a separate name7 spellings in the group

    Also written Kova̓cs, Kovaćs, Kovāčs, Kóvacs, Kovacs

  • Croatian surname19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Romania, Serbia

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian

    Also written Kovacs, Kovâcs, Kovaćs, Kovấcs, Koväcs

37 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

190019201940196019802000Miklós Kovács, b. 1911Pál Kovács, b. 1912Ștefan Kovács, b. 1920László Kovács, b. 1933Angelica Bella, b. 1968Antal Kovács, b. 1972Ágnes Kovács, b. 1981István Kovács, b. 1984Dalma Kovács, b. 1985Sarolta Kovács, b. 1991

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)

FormalTisztelt Kovács!Dear Kovács, (English)
InformalTisztelt Kovács!Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 16 sources across 11 countries.

Official registers attesting Kovács
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2011217K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2012216K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2013216K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2014215K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2015214K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2016213K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2017212K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2018211K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2019210K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2020209K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2021208K#2
HU HungaryNyilvántartó — Top-100 birth surnames in population (2020–2025)2022206K#2

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 Kovács mean, and where does it come from?
a surname originating as an occupation for a smith; one of the most common surnames in Hungary. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Kovács?
A machine transcription gives /kovaːt͡ʃ/ (IPA) for Hungarian.
In which country does Kovács have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 33 thousand people named Kovács in Hungary, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kovacs.
How common is the name Kovács?
In the United States, the national register counted 9,072 people named Kovács in 2010, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
How common is Kovács compared with other names?
In Hungary, Kovács is the 3rd most common surname of 88,284 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kovács?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kov%C3%A1cs

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, “Kovács” — the 3rd most common surname in Hungary. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kovács parses inside a full name →