Tuva

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Tova in US United States, IL Israel.

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●

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

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◐

Tuva is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• English given name764 records spelled Tuva10 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Sweden, Norway, United States, Australia

  Languages: English, German, Dutch

  Also written Túvà, Tuwa

• a separate given name291 records spelled Tuva2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Norway, Sweden

  Also written Tuvå

• French given name130 records spelled Tuva5 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, Norway, Sweden

  Also written Touva, Tuvà, Tuwa

40 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●

Tuva 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 Norwegian Nynorsk, definite singular of tuve

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• In Swedish, Tuva är en ursprunglig sidoform till → Tova. Under de senaste årtiondena har namnet snabbt ökat i popularitet. Möjligen associeras namnet nu med ordet tuva. En känd namnbärare är skådespelerskan Tuva Novotny (f. 1979).

  as a name·Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

• In German, weibl. Vom., norwegische Nebenform von

  as a name·DUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

• In men, v., to remain through the day, to tarry a long while

  as a word·Vocabulary of the Mende Language

• In mbb, a vine or tree of the genus Derris; the roots in decoction are used as a fish poison and the poison is also drunk as a means of suicide

  as a word·Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

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●

NO SSB — Navn (1880–present) — 53 years between 1971–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Tuva Korsströmb. 1946FIFinnish journalist
• Tuva Gry Øyanb. 1949NONorwegian journalist
• Tuva Hølmebakkb. 1974NONorwegian actress
• Tuva Semmingsenb. 1975NONorwegian opera singer
• Tuva Matilda Moa Karolina Hedströmb. 1979SESwedish actress
• Tuva Moflagb. 1979NONorwegian politician
• Tuva Syvertsenb. 1983NONorwegian musician
• Tuva Fellmanb. 1987NONorwegian television presenter
• Tuva Hansenb. 1997NONorwegian footballer
• Tuva Høveb. 2000NONorwegian female handball player

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●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 199 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Tuva?

We estimate roughly 18 thousand people bear Tuva (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.

In which country does Tuva have the most bearers?

We estimate about 8.4 thousand people bear Tuva in Sweden, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled tuva.

Where is Tuva most common?

Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Tuva is densest in Norway — about 1 in 835 people — even though Sweden holds more of our records for it.

How common is Tuva compared with other names?

In Sweden, Tuva is the 449th most common given name of 36,824 given names recorded there.

Is Tuva a male or female name?

Tuva 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 Tuva mean?

Recorded meaning: a female given name, variant of Tove