Kunya
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Swahili: infinitive of -nya
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/kuɲa/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kunya is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Thailand than in any other country.
- THThailand≈1 in 2.5Kas กัญญา(inferred from the name graph)
- ECEcuador1 in 6.5Kas Kenya
- USUnited States1 in 14Kas Kenya
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kunya itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Thailand (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 108 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈27,000 named กัญญา, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Thailand, est., as กัญญา
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
13 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled กัญญา in TH Thailand, ID Indonesia and Kenya in US United States.
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)
infinitive of -nya
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
How Kunya is read(measured from records)
Kunya is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 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.
- Swahili58%
infinitive of -nya
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English14%
An epithet in Arabic names, typically deriving from the name of the bearer's first-born son.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Thai8.3%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Kunya in Thai.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Kunya 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TH Thailand | #254 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | #3,486 | กัญญา | 108 |
| US United States | — | 22,943as Kenya | 1 in 14K | 21K | Kenya | 32 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 2,601as Kenya | 1 in 6.5K | 2.6K | — | 1 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 108K | — | กัญญา | 1 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,662as Kenya | 1 in 127K | 1.7K | — | — |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 205as Kenya | 1 in 25K | 205 | — | — |
| GY Guyana | — | 20as Kenya | 1 in 38K | 21 | — | — |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INEC — civil registry names; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Kunya 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 Hausa, shame, embarrassment
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ki, to pinch
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In lua, to gnaw, bite off with the front teeth.
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.
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
No register attests this spelling yet
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Kunya mean, and where does it come from?
- infinitive of -nya Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Kunya?
- A machine transcription gives /kuɲa/ (IPA) for Swahili.
- In which country does Kunya have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 27 thousand people named กัญญา in Thailand, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Kunya?
- In the United States, the national register counted 22,943 people named Kenya in 2020, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.
- How common is Kunya compared with other names?
- In Thailand, Kunya is the 254th most common given name of 488,147 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kunya?
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/kunyaThe 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, “Kunya” — the 254th most common given name in Thailand. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.