Nganga
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in French: an African witch doctor or specialist in traditional medicine
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 20 countries · latest register: Ministere de l'Interieur, 2025
/ᵑɡaᵑɡa/(machine-generated) Swahili · model-generated · uncertain
Nganga is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Congo - Kinshasa than in any other country. In Congo - Brazzaville it is the 31st most common surname.
- CDCongo - Kinshasa≈1 in 480few records(inferred from the name graph)
- KEKenya≈1 in 840
- GAGabon≈1 in 4.7K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Congo - Kinshasa (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 152 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 418 (inferred from the name graph)
≈230,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Congo - Brazzaville, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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)an African witch doctor or specialist in traditional medicine
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Nganga is read
(measured from records)Nganga 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.
- Swahili69%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Nganga in Swahili.
- French18%
an African witch doctor or specialist in traditional medicine
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English7.3%
A surname from the Bantu languages.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)Nganga 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #203 | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 479 | — | Nganga | 12 |
| KE Kenya | #156 | ≈67,000 est. | ≈1 in 841 | 2 | Nganga | 84 |
| CG Congo - Brazzaville | #31 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 418 | — | Nganga | 11 |
| TZ Tanzania | — | ≈3,100 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | Nganga | 15 |
| US United States | — | 637 | 1 in 522K | 1K | Nganga | 152 |
| GA Gabon | — | ≈540 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | 12 | — | — |
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: Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative). 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)Nganga is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Filipino, act of opening one's mouth
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In bik, gape, opening of the mouth
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Tswana, to dispute, to argue
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In ktu, traditional healer
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)- Edouard Ngangab. 1933CGCongolese artist
- Evelyne Ngangab. 1986KEKenyan distance runner
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)26 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1K | #25,766 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 637 | #35,345 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 156 | #105,905 |
| GA Gabon | Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative) | 2025 | 12 | #83 |
| KE Kenya | Mzalendo Trust "Elections Watch" — 2022 gazetted election winners | 2022 | 2 | #153 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Nganga mean, and where does it come from?
- an African witch doctor or specialist in traditional medicine Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Nganga?
- It depends on the language: in Swahili /ᵑɡaᵑɡa/; in French /nɡan.ɡa/ (Wiktionary). Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
- In which country does Nganga have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 228 thousand people named Nganga in Congo - Kinshasa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nganga.
- How common is the name Nganga?
- In the United States, the national register counted 637 people named Nganga in 2010, about 1 in 522 thousand residents.
- How common is Nganga compared with other names?
- In Congo - Kinshasa, Nganga is the 203rd most common surname of 44,726 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nganga?
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/ngangaThe 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, “Nganga” — the 203rd most common surname in Congo - Kinshasa. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.