Mona (name)

Mona is a female, and sometimes male, given name and a surname of multiple origins.

Given name
As a given name, Mona can have the following meanings and origins;

In northern Europe, where the name is much more popular, Mona is interpreted as a diminutive of Monika or, rarely, of Ramona or Simona. It is sometimes associated with the title of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa, although in that context the word Mona is actually a title rather than a name. The word mona also means cute, monkey and doll in Spanish. In Sweden, Mona's name day is May 4.

Mona was a relatively popular given name in the United States in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. The highest ranking it ever reached in the US was #230, in 1950.

Notable people

 * Mona Achache (born 1981), French-Moroccan film director, actress and screenwriter
 * Mona Barthel (born 1990), German professional tennis player
 * Mona Beaumont (1927–2007), French-born American painter, printmaker
 * Mona Berglund Nilsson (born 1942), Swedish politician
 * Mona Charen (born 1957), American columnist and political analyst
 * Mona Eltahawy, Egyptian-American activist
 * Mona Fandey, Malaysian singer and murderer
 * Mona Ghoneim (born 1955), Egyptian composer
 * Mona Grudt (born 1971), former Miss Universe from Norway
 * Mona Hanna-Attisha (born 1976), pediatrician, public health advocate and Flint Water Crisis whistleblower
 * Mona Hatoum (born 1952), British artist of Palestinian origin
 * Mona Hofland (1929–2010), Norwegian actress
 * Mona Johannesson, Swedish model
 * Mona Karim, Lebanese actress
 * Mona Keijzer (born 1968), Dutch politician
 * Mona Khazinder (born 1959), Saudi art curator and historian
 * Mona Mahmudnizhad (1965–1983), Iranian teen executed for membership of the Bahá'í faith
 * Mona Marshall (born 1947), American voice actress
 * Mona Faiz Montrage (Mona 4Reall) (born 1993), Ghanaian socialite and musician
 * Mona Rae Miracle (born 1939), American author, daughter of writer Berniece Baker Miracle and niece of actress Marilyn Monroe
 * Mona Nemer (born 1957), Lebanese-Canadian scientist
 * Mona Rai, final minister of Gour (Sylhet)
 * Mona Rudo (1880-1930), Seediq leader of the Musha Incident, an anti-Japanese movement during the period of Taiwan under Japanese rule.
 * Mona Sahlin (born 1957), Swedish politician
 * Mona Siddiqui (born 1963), British Muslim academic
 * Mona Singh, Indian actress, comedian and television presenter
 * Mona Shaito (born 1994) Lebanese-American fencer
 * Mona Shourie Kapoor, Indian television and film producer
 * Mona L. Siegel, American scholar, author, and historian
 * Mona Simpson (born 1957), American novelist of Syrian and German descent
 * Mona Tougaard (born 2002), Danish fashion model
 * Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004), American poet
 * Mona von Bismarck (1897–1983) American socialite and fashion icon
 * Mona Williams (1905–1991), American novelist and poet
 * Mona Williams (Guyanese writer) (born 1943), Guyanese-New Zealand storyteller and educator
 * Mona Zaki, Egyptian actress

Fictional characters

 * Mona, a 2-year old green-skinned girl, main character in the YTV short series Nanalan'
 * Mona, a character in the 1986 American fantasy drama film The Boy Who Could Fly
 * Mona, an alchemist with green skin from the Shovel Knight video games
 * Mona Aamons Monzano in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle
 * Mona Bergeron, the main character in the 1985 French film Vagabond (Sans Toit ni Loi)
 * Mona Dearly, played by Bette Midler in the 2000 film Drowning Mona
 * Mona Lott, a recurrent character in the 1929–1949 BBC Radio series It's That Man Again
 * Mona Mayfair in several novels by Anne Rice
 * Mona McCluskey, main character in television sitcom of the same name
 * Astrologist Mona Megistus, a hydromancer and playable character from the video game Genshin Impact. She claims her name to mean “The Great Astrologist Mona.”
 * Mona Melendy in Elizabeth Enright's children's book series "The Melendy Quartet"
 * Mona Mullins, a character in the TV sitcoms Top of the Heap and Vinnie & Bobby
 * Mona Parker, the main character in the animated television series Mona the Vampire and the book of the same name
 * Mona Ramsey in the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin
 * Mona Robinson, mother of Angela Bower in the television series Who's the Boss?
 * Mona Rowan, a character in the 1951 novel Camilla Dickinson
 * Mona Sax in the Max Payne franchise
 * Mona Simpson (The Simpsons), Homer Simpson's estranged mother
 * Mona Sterling Pike, Roger Sterling's first wife on Mad Men
 * Mona Stevens in the novel Landfall: A Channel Story by Nevil Shute and its film adaptation
 * Mona Wilder, a shape-shifter in the TV adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
 * Mona Vanderwaal in the Pretty Little Liars novel series
 * Mona, Ross Geller's girlfriend in the television series Friends, played by Bonnie Somerville
 * Mona, a young prostitute in the novel Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
 * Mona, a character in the WarioWare series of video games
 * Mona Franklin, Nadine's mum in The Edge of Seventeen

Nickname

 * Mona Keijzer (born 1968), Dutch politician
 * Mona Mårtenson (1902–1956), Swedish film actress
 * Mona Pasquil (born 1962), American politician

Surname
As a surname, Mona can have two origins. In Italian and Greek, it is a feminine form of Moni which is a short form of Simone, the Italian form of Simon. In Arabic countries, it is derived from the given name Muna, meaning "unreachable wishes". It is the plural form of the word Munia (مـُـنيه).

Notable people with the surname include:


 * Domenico Mona (1550–1602), Italian late-Renaissance painter
 * István Móna (1940–2010), Hungarian modern pentathlete and Olympic champion
 * Khwezi Mona (born 1992), South African rugby union player