Meaning of the nameAfonso

Afonso is a male name of Germanic origin, from the Gothic *aþalafuns through the Medieval Latin Alfonsus; Behind the Name translates the Visigothic name as 'noble and ready'.

Meaning

“'noble and ready', from the Gothic aþals and funs”

Source: Behind the Name: Alfonso

People (2022): 41,268
Rank in Brazil: #651
Median age: 54 years
2010 Census: 48,674; people

Afonso in the 2022 Census

People with the first name Afonso, by the decade they were born. In the chart, 70 = the 1970s and 20+ = 2020 to 2022. The largest group was born in the 1960s (7,949 people).

145 women 41,123 men

Source: IBGE, 2022 Demographic Census, Nomes no Brasil. The census counts the first name of people alive in 2022; small counts are not published, and the first group covers everyone born before 1940. How to read these data.

Where the name Afonso is most common

States with the highest share of people named Afonso in the population, in the 2022 Census.

Minas Gerais 0.035%
Amazonas 0.027%
Piauí 0.027%
Pará 0.026%
Santa Catarina 0.024%

All states

State	People	% of population
São Paulo	7,490	0.017%
Minas Gerais	7,181	0.035%
Rio de Janeiro	2,592	0.016%
Paraná	2,466	0.022%
Bahia	2,296	0.016%
Rio Grande do Sul	2,126	0.020%
Pará	2,101	0.026%
Ceará	1,948	0.022%
Santa Catarina	1,805	0.024%
Maranhão	1,344	0.020%
Goiás	1,305	0.019%
Pernambuco	1,190	0.013%
Amazonas	1,075	0.027%
Piauí	875	0.027%
Paraíba	872	0.022%
Espírito Santo	843	0.022%
Mato Grosso	647	0.018%
Mato Grosso do Sul	576	0.021%
Distrito Federal	515	0.018%
Rio Grande do Norte	410	0.012%
Alagoas	330	0.011%
Rondônia	328	0.021%
Sergipe	291	0.013%
Tocantins	282	0.019%
Amapá	151	0.021%
Roraima	116	0.018%
Acre	113	0.014%

States with fewer than 15 people with the name are not shown: IBGE does not publish those counts.

About the name Afonso

Wiktionary traces Afonso to the Old Galician-Portuguese Afonso, the Medieval Latin Alfonsus or Adephonsus and the reconstructed Gothic *aþalafuns. Behind the Name presents Afonso as the Portuguese and Galician form of Alfonso and explains the Visigothic name through the Gothic elements aþals ('noble') and funs ('ready'); since the Latin spelling Adefonsus also appears, there is a hypothesis that the first element is a different one, perhaps haþus, 'battle', and that two or more names merged. In the 2022 Census, IBGE recorded 41,268 people named Afonso, with a median age of 54. The name is almost always male and appears in all birth cohorts, with the most records among those born in the 1950s and 1960s and a new rise in the 1990s; proportionally, it is most common in Minas Gerais.

Sources

Wiktionary: Afonso · en.wiktionary.org · origin
Behind the Name: Afonso · behindthename.com · origin
Behind the Name: Alfonso · behindthename.com · meaning
Dicionário de Nomes em Uso no Brasil: Afonso · dicionariodenomesdobrasil.com.br · spelling

Questions about the name Afonso

What does the name Afonso mean?

Afonso means “'noble and ready', from the Gothic aþals and funs”, according to Behind the Name.

How many people are named Afonso in Brazil?

IBGE's 2022 Census recorded 41,268 people with the first name Afonso, which ranks it number 651 among the country's names. The largest group was born in the 1960s.

Is Afonso a boy's or a girl's name?

Afonso is a male name: in the 2022 Census, 145 women and 41,123 men had this name.

What is the origin of the name Afonso?

Afonso is a name of Germanic origin. The sources are listed at the end of the page.

In which Brazilian state is Afonso most common?

Proportionally, in Minas Gerais: 0.035% of the state's population is named Afonso (7,181 people), according to the 2022 Census.

More names of Germanic origin

See all

Spotted a mistake? Report a correction for Afonso with a source. See the methodology.