Sona

given name · Hindi · Latin script

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

Sona is a given name, most frequently recorded in India, where it is the 92nd most common given name. It appears chiefly in Hindi and Czech, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares.

rarermore common
  • YEYemen1 in 15◐
  • CZCzechia1 in 282
  • TRTürkiye1 in 416

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

≈258K ●

across 9 countries

#444 ●

of 16M given names

12 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
408 ●

4.5M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 250 ◐

Finland

Spellings & scripts●

SoniLatin · Hindi●1.8M records
СанияCyrillic · Russian●144K records
선아Hangul · Korean●37K records
ᲡონაGeorgian · Georgian●2.6K records
สุนาThai · Thai●2.4K records
שאנהHebrew · Hebrew●371 records
ՍոնաArmenian · Armenian●228 records
সানBengali · Bangla●24 records
సనTelugu · Telugu●1 records
ΣοναGreek · Greek●1 records
ਸੁਨGurmukhi · Punjabi●1 records
සේනSinhala · Sinhala●0 records

20 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Sana in FR France, PK Pakistan, ES Spain and 2 more, Shauna in US United States, CA Canada, AU Australia and 1 more, Jona in PH Philippines, FI Finland, BR Brazil and 1 more and Сания in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan.

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●

The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares. See the sona-Nanda Jātaka.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol II (N-H)

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Sona is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
IN India#924,416,5151.9M rec.—218KSoni273
TR Türkiye#321877,312953K rec.—#94Şen103
YE Yemen—267,173236 rec.——Sanaa14
RU Russia#243175,13157K rec.—#122Сания127
US United States#433164,680957K rec.1 in 2K165KShauna408
TH Thailand#119148,56785K rec.—#92,533สุนีย์128
NG Nigeria#39117,517129K rec.—listedSani76
GB United Kingdom#39870,08358K rec.—36Shona159
PK Pakistan#9159,5828.3K rec.—listedSana113
KR South Korea#20557,05229K rec.—1M선아146
PH Philippines#56839,36234K rec.—32KJona74
CZ Czechia#11137,906△2.7K rec.1 in 28238KSona95

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

Languages●

  • Hindi761K70%
  • Czech98K9%
  • 42K4%
  • English38K4%
  • Turkish34K3%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Hindi760,92470%
Czech98,0259%
41,5874%
English38,0904%
Turkish34,2093%

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◐

Sona is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Turkish given name53K records spelled Sona6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, India

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek

    Also written Şona, Söna, Soña

  • a separate given name48K records spelled Sona7 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Soňa, Son̆a, Sōna, Sońa, Sonā

  • Swahili given name3.0K records spelled Sona6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, Türkiye, Congo - Kinshasa

    Languages: Swahili, Kinyarwanda

    Also written Şona, Soňa, Soña

  • Chinese given name1.7K records spelled Sona3 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: Chinese, Burmese

    Also written Soňa

  • Finnish given name1.3K records spelled Sona12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Finland, Estonia, United States

    Languages: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian

    Also written Sõna, Şona, Soňa, Sońa, Soña

  • Persian given name925 records spelled Sona3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Iran, United States, Türkiye

    Languages: Persian, Pashto

    Also written Şona

  • Norwegian Bokmål given name631 records spelled Sona11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Norway, United States, Denmark, India

    Languages: Norwegian Bokmål, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Şona, Soňa, Soña

39 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●

Sona 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.

  • Rhodes

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

  • In Italian, oriundo da cidade set. de Sona, de raízes obscuras

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

  • In Cebuano, a zone; a given area distinguished on the basis of a particular characteristic, use, restriction, etc.

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

  • In Azerbaijani, A transliteration of the Armenian female given name Սոնա (Sona)

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

  • In Latin, second-person singular present active imperative of sonō

    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.

Over time●

02K4K6K1900192019401960198020004.7K · 1993

Show as table
Sona in naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls), India, 1899–2017
Yearrecords
18999
19083
19091
19111
19121
19133
191413
191511
191619
191733
191827
191961
192077
192166
1922153
1923138
1924212
1925148
1926188
1927279
1928256
1929500
1930303
1931399
1932701
1933550
1934900
1935646
1936848
1937940
1938866
19391,186
1940897
19411,123
19421,689
19431,291
19442,035
19451,700
19461,976
19472,142
19481,481
19491,630
19501,931
19511,926
19522,525
19531,728
19542,414
19552,453
19562,537
19572,293
19583,254
19593,944
19602,760
19613,425
19624,537
19633,685
19644,433
19653,489
19664,000
19674,438
19683,615
19693,636
19703,855
19713,733
19724,134
19733,623
19743,599
19753,703
19763,695
19773,573
19783,394
19793,275
19802,637
19813,587
19823,636
19834,076
19843,851
19853,897
19863,909
19873,903
19883,519
19893,551
19903,562
19914,129
19924,493
19934,747
19944,303
19953,478
19962,126
19972,315
19981,297
199950
20004
20011
20023
20031
20061
200720
2008580
200928
2010720
2011172
2012392
2013165
2014336
2015204
20162
20174

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 108 years between 1899–2017. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Sona Akhundova-Bagirbekova, b. 1896Sona Aslanova, b. 1924Sona MacDonald, b. 1961Sona Heiden, b. 1969Sona Nair, b. 1975Sona Mohapatra, b. 1978Sona Taumalolo, b. 1981Sona Movsesian, b. 1982Sona Jobarteh, b. 1983Sona Ghazaryan, b. 1993

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 38 countries.

Official registers attesting Sona
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaIndia Names Dataset — Andhra Pradesh Electoral Rolls (Internet Archive)—3.7K#1,120
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20202.8K#5,819
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls—2.7K#2,528
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—346#385
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—342—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020312#68,029
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010274#71,265
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000268#68,569
AZ AzerbaijanAzerbaijan Ministry of Justice — Civil Registry Name Statistics—218—
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—212#4,602
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—210#8,709
ES SpainINE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—182#4,401

Reference works 5

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • 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 2026-09-12 data build · 457 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Sona?
We estimate roughly 258 thousand people bear Sona (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Sona have the most bearers?
Sona is most frequently recorded in India, where it is most often spelled soni.
How common is Sona compared with other names?
In India, Sona is the 92nd most common given name of 4,777,337 given names recorded there.
Is Sona a male or female name?
Sona is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
What does the name Sona mean?
Recorded meaning: The Bodhisatta born as a brahmin of Benares.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sona

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, “Sona” — the 92nd most common given name in India. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Sona parses inside a full name →