Esperanza

given name · Spanish · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Esperanza is a given name, most frequently recorded in Mexico. In El Salvador it is the 49th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Spanish and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from Latin spero ‘to hope’; from the root *spe-, ‘hope’.

rarermore common
  • SVEl Salvador1 in 417◐
  • MXMexico1 in 836
  • COColombia1 in 1.1K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈87K ●

across 9 countries

2 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
317 ●

1.1M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.3K ◐

Spain

Spellings & scripts●

EsperanzaLatin · Spanish●1.4M records
ЭсперансаCyrillic · Russian●33 records

Locally spelled E'Speranza in CL Chile.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

from Latin spero ‘to hope’; from the root *spe-, ‘hope’.

Sources 1

  • Diccionario etimológico de nombres propios

Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Esperanza is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MX Mexico#140380,143335K rec.—1.3KEsperanza163
PE Peru#161201,150162K rec.——Esperanza54
AR Argentina#537116,38574K rec.—685Esperanza62
VE Venezuela#247100,20773K rec.—7.6KEsperanza57
SV El Salvador#4965,01264K rec.——Esperanza29
CO Colombia#15757,61029K rec.—16Esperanza126
PH Philippines#50942,99250K rec.——Esperanza82
ES Spain#15739,95956K rec.1 in 1.3K42KEsperanza163
US United States—35,897133K rec.1 in 9.3K36KEsperanza317
EC Ecuador#2318,180△800 rec.1 in 2.1K8.2KEsperanza40
BR Brazil—1,2563.7K rec.1 in 169K1.8KEsperanza46
CR Costa Rica—8663.8K rec.1 in 5.9K866—29

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • Spanish1.4M78%
  • English159K9%
  • Catalan40K2%
  • 14K1%
  • Portuguese10K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Spanish1,412,26978%
English159,0189%
Catalan39,9622%
13,5981%
Portuguese9,9941%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

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

  • English given name191K records spelled Esperanza7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Venezuela, Ecuador, United Kingdom

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Espëränzä, Espèranza

  • a separate given name16K records spelled Esperanza2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Spain, United Kingdom, Bolivia

    Also written Espéranza

  • Lao given name2.0K records spelled Esperanza8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, United States, Thailand, Philippines

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written เอสเปรันซ่า, เอสเปรนซา, Éspéránzá, Êspërānzā, Èsperanza

  • Estonian given name980 records spelled Esperanza4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Finland, Spain, Peru

    Languages: Estonian, Finnish

    Also written Ësperänzä, Ëspëränzä

58 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●

Esperanza 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 English, yellow bells (Tecoma stans)

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

  • In Spanish, hope, hopefulness

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

  • hope; Ciudad de Mexico, Buenos Aires, Smyrna, Urla, Turkey, Campos, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Brasil

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • In French, Origine espagnole, signifie « espérance ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, Spanish virtue name meaning 'hope'.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

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.

Over time●

020040060019502000499 · 2000

Show as table
Esperanza in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1903–2025
Yearrecords
19036
19056
19065
19079
190812
19097
191013
191114
191220
191330
191440
191554
191650
191762
191875
191996
1920115
1921115
1922112
1923156
1924174
1925184
1926202
1927190
1928228
1929219
1930169
1931169
1932143
1933138
1934153
1935124
1936139
1937111
1938124
1939115
1940147
1941115
1942137
1943145
1944164
1945179
1946179
1947184
1948199
1949153
1950167
1951177
1952166
1953167
1954160
1955144
1956103
1957152
1958121
1959143
1960136
1961133
1962140
1963116
1964146
1965120
1966103
1967118
196899
1969121
1970104
1971109
1972132
1973125
1974148
1975134
1976129
1977129
1978148
1979159
1980138
1981164
1982150
1983125
1984122
1985110
1986117
1987132
1988112
1989132
1990158
1991163
1992144
1993176
1994182
1995213
1996289
1997316
1998316
1999402
2000499
2001455
2002423
2003396
2004350
2005363
2006422
2007351
2008277
2009278
2010271
2011296
2012240
2013249
2014258
2015298
2016264
2017277
2018265
2019272
2020270
2021224
2022262
2023258
2024252
2025188

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 122 years between 1903–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

190019201940196019802000Esperanza López Mateos, b. 1907Esperanza Baur, b. 1920Esperanza Roy, b. 1935Vicky, b. 1947Esperanza Aguirre Gil de Biedma, b. 1952Esperanza Elipe, b. 1961Esperanza Pedreño, b. 1974Esperanza Gomez, b. 1980Esperanza Spalding, b. 1984Esperanza America, b. 1986

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●

Attested in 69 sources across 32 countries.

Official registers attesting Esperanza
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—42K#109
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—40K#202
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202036K#1,128
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names20248.2K#246
VE Venezuelaasosab — SAIME ID-card names (1896–1996)—7.6K#265
MX MexicoRENAPO — name frequencies (eduardofv dataset)—1.3K#74
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020201.3K#20,959
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020101.2K#21,811
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000960#24,432
CR Costa RicaTSE — electoral roll (padrón) names—866#609
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—685—
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present)2024496#286

Reference works 4

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 746 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Esperanza?
We estimate roughly 87 thousand people bear Esperanza (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Esperanza have the most bearers?
Esperanza is most frequently recorded in Mexico, where it is most often spelled esperanza.
How common is Esperanza compared with other names?
In Mexico, Esperanza is the 140th most common given name of 191,605 given names recorded there.
Is Esperanza a male or female name?
Esperanza is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Esperanza mean?
Recorded meaning: from Latin spero ‘to hope’; from the root *spe-, ‘hope’.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/esperanza

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Esperanza” — the 140th most common given name in Mexico. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Esperanza parses inside a full name →