Saw

surname · Latin script

Meaning: /in, -la v. Avxinie III 2, 3

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

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

Saw is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are 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)

/in, -la v. Avxinie III 2, 3. Siinpaltru v. Pet ru I A 3. Sanut v. Avxinie III 3. &taxa v. loan IV B 7. Sanziene v. Joan IV B 1. Saoani v. Sava 7. Saotesen v. S a v a 8. Saphila v. losif I 4. Sarafhn v. S er a f im 3. Saranda v. S a r an di 2. Saraein, -elti v. S er a f i m 6.

Sources 1

  • Dictionar Onomastic Rominesc

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Saw counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Where Saw is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spelling
US United States—1.9K—
IN India—1.4K—
GB United Kingdom—430—
FI Finland—81—
BR Brazil—75—

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; Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror). 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)

Saw is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Hindi surname50 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

    Also written Sav, Sivu, Sivi, Siv, Savi

  • English surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Malaysia, United States, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Sàw, Şaw, Ŝaẁ, Săw, Śaw

  • Malay surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Singapore

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Šäw, Şäŵ, Sâw, Śåw, Säw

  • Burmese surname61 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Myanmar (Burma), India, Malaysia, United States

    Also written Šãw, Ŝâw, Sâw, Šâw, Säw

51 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Saw 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 Akan, v. [inf. a-] 1. to dance. — 2. to shake, syn. wosow, posow, popo, him; - ne ho saw, he trembles; n'aniwa saw, his eye-lashes quiver (a good or ill omen)

    as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)

  • In Akan, red. susuw, to wax old. Ne.9,2l. to be worn out. Je.38,ll. *su-ye, inf. producing the kind or fortn of, forming. Go. 4, 19

    as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)

  • In Akan, V. [red. sesaw] 1, to take up or gather from the ground

    as a wordDictionary of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi (Chwee, Twi)

  • IATA airport code for Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport, which serves Istanbul, Turkey.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, A tool with a toothed blade used for cutting hard substances, in particular wood or metal.

    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)

1920194019601980B. S. Saw, b. 1930Saw Swee Leong, b. 1955Leng Guan Saw, b. 1962

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)

Formalआदरणीय Saw जी,Respected Saw ji, (English)
Informalआदरणीय Saw जी,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 38 sources across 20 countries.

Reference works 5

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

Where does the name Saw come from?
/in, -la v. Avxinie III 2, 3. Siinpaltru v. Pet ru I A 3. Sanut v. Avxinie III 3. &taxa v. loan IV B 7. Sanziene v. Joan IV B 1. Saoani v. Sava 7. Saotesen v. S a v a 8. Saphila v. losif I 4. Recorded by Dictionar Onomastic Rominesc.
What does the name Saw mean?
Recorded meaning: /in, -la v. Avxinie III 2, 3.
How do you pronounce Saw?
A machine transcription gives /sɔ/ (IPA) for Hindi.
In which country does Saw have the most bearers?
Saw is most frequently recorded in the United States.

What do you want to know about Saw?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Saw”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Saw parses inside a full name →