Arco
surname · Spanish · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Arco is a surname, with more bearers in Spain than in any other country. It appears chiefly in Spanish and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: for a bowman or a maker of bows, from It., Sp. arco bow (L arcus) \ cf. Archer. 2.
- ESSpain1 in 10K◐
- COColombia1 in 20K
- ARArgentina1 in 60K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈11K ◐
- Sources
- 78 ●
- 1 in 10K ◐
across 14 countries
20K records
Official registry-verified
Spain
Meaning & origin●
for a bowman or a maker of bows, from It., Sp. arco bow (L arcus) \ cf. Archer. 2. topographic name for someone who lived by the arch of a bridge or aqueduct, from the same word used in an architectural sense. Vars.: It.: Archi, D(ell)’Arco. Sp.: Arcos. Cogns. (of 2): Fr.: Darche, Desarches. Prov.: Desargues. Dims.: It.: Archetto, Archetti, Archini, Arcucci. Fr.: Arquet, Arquin. Augs.: It.: Arcone, Arconi.
Sources 5
- A dictionary of surnames
- Dizionario dei cognomi italiani
- 국립국어원 외래어 표기 용례 자료 (NIKL loanword/foreign-name transcription examples)
- A Frequency Dictionary of Portuguese
- Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by estimated bearers.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ES Spain | ≈5K | 4.7K rec. | 1 in 10K | 2.6K | Arco | 68 |
| CO Colombia | ≈2.5K | 1.3K rec. | 1 in 20K | — | Arco | 21 |
| AR Argentina | ≈758 | 4.7K rec. | 1 in 60K | 377 | Arco | 24 |
| BR Brazil | ≈740 | 453 rec. | 1 in 286K | 1.2K | Arco | 13 |
| MX Mexico | ≈596 | 2.8K rec. | 1 in 216K | — | Arco | 25 |
| PE Peru | ≈345 | 2.9K rec. | 1 in 93K | — | Arco | 14 |
| VE Venezuela | ≈284 | 921 rec. | 1 in 101K | — | Arco | 10 |
| FR France | ≈245 | 827 rec. | 1 in 277K | 16 | Arco | 78 |
| CL Chile | ≈185 | 101 rec. | 1 in 98K | 1 | Arco | 9 |
| UY Uruguay | ≈56 | 222 rec. | 1 in 60K | — | Arco | 7 |
| US United States | ≈52 | 490 rec. | 1 in 6.3M | 327 | Arco | 47 |
| PA Panama | ≈51 | 120 rec. | 1 in 76K | 1 | Arco | 8 |
Roughly 5K people in Spain bear this name (about 1 in 10K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Spanish31K70%
- English8.3K19%
- Catalan2.6K6%
- French1K2%
- Portuguese4041%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | 31,336 | 70% |
| English | 8,316 | 19% |
| Catalan | 2,631 | 6% |
| French | 1,021 | 2% |
| Portuguese | 404 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 8 |
| 1901 | 4 |
| 1911 | 5 |
| 1921 | 10 |
| 1931 | 10 |
| 1941 | 9 |
| 1951 | 17 |
| 1961 | 21 |
| 1971 | 8 |
| 1981 | 29 |
| 1991 | 16 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Johann Philipp d'Arcob. 1652Austrian army commander (1652-1704)
- Ludwig Graf von Arcob. 1773(1773-1854)
- Maximilian Arco-Zinnebergb. 1811DEGerman chamberlain and hunter (1811–1885)
- Maximilian Maria Graf von Arco auf Valleyb. 1849DE(1849-1911)
- Georg von Arcob. 1869PLGerman physicist (1869–1940)
- Anton Graf von Arco auf Valleyb. 1897DEGerman terrorist and political activist (1897-1945)
- Louis V. Arcob. 1899ATAustrian actor
- Agnes Husslein-Arcob. 1954ATAustrian art historian
- Nino del Arcob. 1958ESSpanish actor
- Miguel del Arcob. 1965ESSpanish playwright, screenwriter, and theater and film director
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 30 sources across 17 countries.
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 2026-09-03 data build · 87 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Arco?
- We estimate roughly 11 thousand people bear Arco (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
- In which country does Arco have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 5.0 thousand people bear Arco in Spain, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled arco.
- Where is Arco most common?
- Arco is densest in Spain, where we estimate about 1 in 10 thousand people carry it.
- What does the name Arco mean?
- Recorded meaning: for a bowman or a maker of bows, from It., Sp. arco bow (L arcus) \ cf. Archer. 2.
Query this name via API
curl https://nelma-api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/arcoThe 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
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, “Arco”. Data snapshot 2026-08-31.