Cossa
surname · Latin script
Meaning: third-person singular past historic of cosser
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkɔsə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cossa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Mozambique than in any other country, where it is the 2nd most common surname.
- BRBrazil1 in 226K(measured from records)
- MZMozambique≈1 in 229
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 9.5K
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.
- Mozambique (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 67 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 229 (inferred from the name graph)
≈130,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Mozambique, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
third-person singular past historic of cosser
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cossa 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MZ Mozambique | #2 | ≈130,000 est. | ≈1 in 229 | 7 | Cossa | 47 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈5,900 est. | ≈1 in 9.5K | — | Cossa | 14 |
| BR Brazil | — | 936 | 1 in 226K | 936 | Cossa | 67 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 75K | listed | Cossa | 24 |
| FR France | — | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 345K | 23 | — | 1 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 81 | 1 in 42K | 81 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | — | 61 | 1 in 138K | 61 | — | 2 |
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); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); the xinhua-italian-manual register; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Cossa 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 Catalan, course where certain footraces and horseback races were run
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sga, nominative/vocative/accusative plural of cos
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Nynorsk, to cosplay as something
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In lld, thing, object
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)
- Luigi Cossab. 1789ITItalian engraver (1789-1867)
- Pietro Cossab. 1830IT19th-century Italian dramatist
- Luigi Cossab. 1831ITItalian economist (1831–1896)
- Alfonso Cossab. 1833ITItalian chemist (1833–1902)
- Roberto Cossab. 1934ARArgentinian playwright and theatre director (1934–2024)
- Elisa Cossab. 1980MZMozambican sprinter
- Albino Cossab. 1982MZMozambican footballer
- Anabela Cossab. 1986MZMozambican basketball player (born 1986)
- Pepêb. 1997BRnot in their usual nameBrazilian professional footballer
- Ralph A. CossaUSAmerican air foce colonel (ret.) and national security specialist
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 21 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 936 | #9,863 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 81 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 61 | #16,013 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 31 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 26 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 23 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 22 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 16 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 14 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 9 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- 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 Cossa mean, and where does it come from?
- third-person singular past historic of cosser Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Cossa?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɔsə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Cossa have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 132 thousand people named Cossa in Mozambique, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cossa.
- How common is the name Cossa?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 936 people named Cossa, about 1 in 226 thousand residents.
- How common is Cossa compared with other names?
- In Mozambique, Cossa is the 2nd most common surname of 2,021 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cossa?
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/cossaThe 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, “Cossa” — the 2nd most common surname in Mozambique. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.