Nava

Nava is the 901st most common surname in the United States, shared by 38,135 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 7,838.

By the numbers

People: 38,135
Rank: 901st
How common: 1 in 7,838
Per 100,000: 12.8

Where the name comes from

From Spanish, Catalan and ast-roa-leo surname, from several placenames derived from nava (“plain, treeless plateau”), from qsb-ibe, probably Basque naba (“plain, valley”). See Navarra.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Nava described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

Hispanic or Latino 93.2%
White, not Hispanic 4.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%
Black, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Nava

Gregory Nava (born 1949)American film director and producer
Stefano Nava (born 1969)Italian footballer
Jake Nava (born 2000)British commercial and music video director
Emilio Nava (born 2001)American tennis player
Giuseppe Francica-Nava de Bontifè (1846–1928)Catholic cardinal

People named Nava with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Nava

Also a first name

Nava has been given to 1,513 American babies as a first name since 1923, peaking in 2025. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.