Tema
loc · Latin script
Meaning: The etymological meaning of the name Tema is uncertain, though some sources suggest a connection to 'south' or 'desert'
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/tmə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tema is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Ghana.
- GHGhana
- GBUnited Kingdom
- USUnited States
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Ghana (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 140 (measured from records)
no count published
Highest-authority source
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
The etymological meaning of the name Tema is uncertain, though some sources suggest a connection to 'south' or 'desert'.
Sources 1
- Biblical Names Compiled Database
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tema counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GH Ghana | — | — | Tema | 5 |
| US United States | — | 321 | Tema | 140 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 20 | Tema | 27 |
| BR Brazil | — | 47 | — | 1 |
| AR Argentina | — | 29 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | — | 24 | — | — |
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 2020; IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); MVČR — living population register 2017; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)
Tema 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.
Tema is a biblical name of Hebrew origin, belonging to a son of Ishmael. The name is associated with an ancient and historically significant oasis in Arabia.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
As one of the twelve princes of Ishmael, Tema represents the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham to make Ishmael a great nation with twelve rulers.
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
Ghanaian place name; also Egyptian: city.
as a nameAfrican Names
South or Desert
as a nameBiblical Names Compiled Database
In English, Biblical name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Muzaffer Temab. 1919TRTurkish actor (1919–2011)
- Arsène Tema Biwoléb. 1992CMCameroonian physicist
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 31 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 321 | #66,499 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 196 | #93,513 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 44 | #114,634 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 29 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 20 | #90,540 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 1 | #249,837 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 1 | #28,290 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- How do you pronounce Tema?
- A machine transcription gives /tmə/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Tema mean, and where does it come from?
- The etymological meaning of the name Tema is uncertain, though some sources suggest a connection to 'south' or 'desert'. Recorded by Biblical Names Compiled Database.
- In which country does Tema have the most bearers?
- Tema is most frequently recorded in Ghana, where it is most often spelled tema.
What do you want to know about Tema?
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/temaThe 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, “Tema”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.