Nova
loc · Latin script
Meaning: literally ‘new’, probably a habitational name from a place named Vila Nova
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Nova is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 114K(measured from records)
- CZCzechia1 in 3.2K
- BRBrazil1 in 11K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 314 (measured from records)
- 1 in 3.2K (inferred from the name graph)
19,736 people
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
literally ‘new’, probably a habitational name from a place named Vila Nova.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nova 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 19,736 | 1 in 11K | 20K | Nova | 4 |
| CZ Czechia | 3,334 | 1 in 3.2K | 3.3K | — | 1 |
| US United States | 2,928 | 1 in 114K | 20K | Nova | 314 |
| ES Spain | 1,978 | 1 in 25K | 2K | Nova | 38 |
| AR Argentina | 548 | 1 in 83K | 548 | — | — |
| CR Costa Rica | 177 | 1 in 29K | 177 | — | — |
| SK Slovakia | 149 | 1 in 37K | 149 | — | 1 |
19,736 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; MVČR — living population register 2017; naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census). 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)
Nova is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Portuguese, news
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
habitational name from any of the towns called Nova in Albacete or Asturies.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In French, Du latin nova, « nouvelle ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In French, Latin nova, meaning 'new'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In German, in den i97oer-Jahren aus dem Eng-
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
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)
- Lou Novab. 1913USAmerican boxer (1913-1991)
- Nova Pilbeamb. 1919GBBritish actress (1919-2015)
- Aldo Novab. 1956CACanadian musician
- Carlos Aguilerab. 1964UYnot in their usual nameUruguayan footballer
- Heather Novab. 1968GBBermudian singer-songwriter
- Nova Spivackb. 1969USAmerican businessman
- Nova Peris-Kneeboneb. 1971AUAustralian politician, hockey player and sprinter
- Nikki Novab. 1972USAmerican adult model and actress
- Ana Novab. 1975DEGerman pornographic actress
- Nova Widiantob. 1977IDbadminton player
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 89 sources across 44 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 20K | #1,541 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 4.7K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.6K | #1,541 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 149 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 55 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 55 | #62,400 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 52 | #26,933 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 30 | #19,585 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 23 | #59,045 |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Nova mean, and where does it come from?
- literally ‘new’, probably a habitational name from a place named Vila Nova. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Nova have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 20 thousand people named Nova, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nova.
- Where is Nova most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Nova is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 3.2 thousand people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Nova?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 19,736 people named Nova, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Nova?
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/novaThe 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, “Nova”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.