Bonga
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A barangay of Bacacay, Albay, Philippines
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/bɔŋɡə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bonga is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Congo - Kinshasa than in any other country.
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 90K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 1.5M
- MEMontenegro≈1 in 2.4K
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.
- Congo - Kinshasa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 102 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Montenegro, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A barangay of Bacacay, Albay, Philippines.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
How Bonga is read(measured from records)
Bonga is one spelling over 5 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.
- English38%
A barangay of Bacacay, Albay, Philippines.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Swahili15%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Bonga in Swahili.
- French9.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Bonga in French.
- Hindi9.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Bonga in Hindi.
- Spanish8.8%
silk-cotton tree
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Bonga 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 | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 25K | 3 | — | 2 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Bonga | 42 |
| CM Cameroon | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Bonga | 1 |
| PH Philippines | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 90K | — | Bonga | 24 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 291K | — | Bonga | 35 |
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 40K | 444 | — | — |
| ME Montenegro | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | — | Bonga | 1 |
| US United States | 224 | 1 in 1.5M | 246 | Bonga | 102 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies; Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Bonga 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 Malagasy, clod of earth
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fng, to thank
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kyj, flower
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In mrw, fruit
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)
- Jan Bongab. 1550politician
- Sjoerd Bongab. 1794NLDutch painter (1794–1865)
- Cedric Bongab. 1985CDCongolese baseball player
- Deborah Bongab. 1993DEGerman association football player
- Tarsis Bongab. 1997DEassociation football player (1997-)
- Isaac Bongab. 1999DEGerman basketball player (born 1999)
- Joshua Bongab. 2005DEGerman basketball player (born 2005)
- Béatrice BongaUSPhysicist
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)
Attested in 26 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CI Côte d’Ivoire | nomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies | — | 444 | #1,104 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 246 | #82,600 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 224 | #83,834 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 177 | #95,567 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 3 | #20 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Bonga mean, and where does it come from?
- A barangay of Bacacay, Albay, Philippines. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Bonga?
- A machine transcription gives /bɔŋɡə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Bonga have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.0 thousand people named Bonga in Congo - Kinshasa, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Bonga?
- In the United States, the national register counted 224 people named Bonga in 2010, about 1 in 1.5 million residents.
What do you want to know about Bonga?
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/bongaThe 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, “Bonga”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.