Sow

surname · Arabic · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Sow is a surname, most frequently recorded in Mauritania, where it is the 2nd most common surname. It appears chiefly in Arabic and French, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt.

rarermore common
  • MRMauritania1 in 17◐
  • SNSenegal1 in 62
  • ESSpain1 in 14K

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

≈7.8K ●

across 14 countries

Sources
252 ●

49K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 14K ◐

Spain

Meaning & origin●

from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt

Sources 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Sow is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
MR Mauritania#290,138336 rec.—90KSow26
SN Senegal#49,8543.3K rec.—218Sow75
ES Spain—3,696△1.3K rec.1 in 14K3.7KSow52
US United States—1,9844.8K rec.1 in 168K3.2KSow158
CI Côte d’Ivoire—1,137369 rec.—505Sow18
FR France#45788131K rec.1 in 77K881Sow252
IT Italy—826869 rec.——Sow37
MX Mexico—489492 rec.——Sow1
BE Belgium—4582K rec.1 in 26K2.7KSow49
ML Mali#39399476 rec.—6Sow27
CH Switzerland—345△49 rec.1 in 24K345—17
GB United Kingdom—153130 rec.——Sow50

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

Languages●

  • Arabic91K43%
  • French65K31%
  • English13K6%
  • Spanish11K5%
  • Catalan3.7K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
Arabic90,98743%
French65,13131%
English12,5736%
Spanish11,1805%
Catalan3,6962%

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◐

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

  • English surname26K records spelled Sow9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Belgium, Malaysia, Senegal

    Languages: English, Dutch, German

    Also written Sów, Sõw, Sôw, Söw

  • Spanish surname13K records spelled Sow4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Senegal, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Söw, Sòw

  • Malay surname11K records spelled Sow3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Malaysia, United States, Indonesia, Singapore

    Languages: Malay, Indonesian

    Also written Söw

  • Hindi given name512 records spelled Sow29 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, Bangladesh, United States, Pakistan

    Languages: Hindi, Bangla, Urdu

    Also written Sho, Show, SHoo, Shov, শো

57 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●

Sow is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, A female pig.

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

  • In sbh, to shoot (with an arrow)

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

  • In lue, alternate

    as a wordBantu Lexical Reconstructions 3 (BLR3), Tervuren 2002/2003

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●

02505007501K194019601980894 · 1981

Show as table
Sow in INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000), France, 1921–1991
Yearrecords
19213
19317
194122
195127
196181
1971308
1981894
1991881

FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 8 years between 1921–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1900195020002050Mohamed Bechir-Sow, b. 1907Daouda Sow, b. 1933Amina Sow Mbaye, b. 1937Dior Fall Sow, b. 1968Pape Sow, b. 1981Moussa Sow, b. 1986Samba Sow, b. 1989Coumba Sow, b. 1994Djibril Sow, b. 1997Saïdou Sow, b. 2002

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 43 sources across 25 countries.

Official registers attesting Sow
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
MR MauritaniaThe page discusses common family names in Mauritania, reflecting the rich cultural heritage and diverse history of the c202690K#3
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—3.7K#1,406
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—3.7K#1,406
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020203.2K#9,585
BE BelgiumStatbel — Noms de famille (family names)—2.7K#321
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102K#14,920
AW ArubaThis page presents data on the most common family names in Belgium, published by Statbel, the Belgian statistical office20251.5K#4
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1981894—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991881—
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—783#27
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000627#34,210
CI Côte d’Ivoirenomprenoms.ci — ranked Ivorian surname frequencies—505#967

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 · 62 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Sow?
We estimate roughly 7.8 thousand people bear Sow (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
In which country does Sow have the most bearers?
Sow is most frequently recorded in Mauritania, where it is most often spelled sow.
How common is Sow compared with other names?
In Mauritania, Sow is the 2nd most common surname of 1,762 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Sow mean?
Recorded meaning: from the River Sow (Staffordshire) or from Sowe (Warwickshire); first attested John de Sowe 1203 AssSt
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/sow

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, “Sow” — the 2nd most common surname in Mauritania. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Sow parses inside a full name →