List of the most common surnames in Germany

Remarks

What is striking is the dominant position of the job titles . Above all, the professions that were widespread at the time of name formation in the Middle Ages are found in the first places. The farming profession was so widespread that it was unsuitable for distinguishing between different people in rural areas. It is therefore only in 13th place. The farmers mostly had names of homes that described the location of the farm in more detail.

List of the 100 most common surnames in Germany

1. Müller , job title
2. Schmidt , job title (all homophonic spelling variants together would result in 1st place)
3. Tailor , job title
4. Fisherman , job title
5. Weber , job title
6. Meyer , professional title (all homophonic spelling variants together would result in 2nd place)
7. Wagner , job title
8. Becker , job title, name of residence
9. Schulz , trade name
10. Hoffmann , job title, name of residence
11. Shepherd , job title
12. Chef , job title
13. Farmer , job title
14. Judge , job title
15. Small , property ("the little one")
16. Wolf , mostly derived from first names (Wolfgang, Wolfhard etc.), often also nicknames
17. Schröder (tailor), job title
18. Neumann , property ("The New One")
19. Black , property ("The Black-haired")
20. Carpenter , job title
21. Brown , characteristic ("Der Braunhaarige") or derived from first names (Brunhold)
22. Krüger , job title
23. Hofmann , job title
24. Hartmann , first name
25. Lange , property ("The Great")
26. Schmitt , job title
27. Werner , first name
28. Schmitz , job title
29. Krause , property
30. Meier , trade name
31. Lehmann , trade name
32. Schmid , job title
33. Schulze , trade name
34. Maier , job title
35. Koehler , job title
36. Herrmann , first name
37. King , nickname, house name
38. Walter , first name
39. Mayer , trade name
40. Huber , trade name
41. Emperor , nickname, house name
42. Fuchs , nickname
43. Peters , first name
44. Long , property
45. Scholz , denomination
46. Möller , job title
47. White , property
48. Young , property
49. Hahn , nickname
50. Schubert , job title (shoemaker)
51. Bird , nickname, house name
52. Friedrich , first name
53. Basement , job title
54. Günther , first name
55. Frank , origin (from Franconia)
56. Berger , home name
57. Winkler , job title
58. Roth , nickname, home name
59. Beck , job title (baker) or home name (Bach)
60. Lorenz , first name
61. Baumann , job title (farmer)
62. Franke , origin (from Franconia)
63. Albrecht , first name
64. Shoemaker , job title
65. Simon , first name
66. Ludwig , first name
67. Böhm , origin (from Bohemia)
68. Winter , nickname
69. Kraus , property
70. Martin , first name
71. Schumacher , job title
72. Shopkeeper , job title (small trader)
73. Vogt , professional title (advocatus, administrator)
74. Stone , home name
75. Hunter , job title
76. Otto , first name
77. Summer , socially conditioned relationship to the season
78. Great , property
79. Seidel , title (settler)
80. Heinrich , first name
81. Brandt , personal name (Hildebrand, Gerbrand, Wolbrand etc.)
82. Haas , house name, nickname for the hunter
83. Clerk , job title
84. Graf , status (supervisory officer), takeover name
85. Schulte , denomination (Schultheiß)
86. Dietrich , first name
87. Ziegler , professional name (brick maker)
88. Kuhn , abbreviation of the first name Konrad or a variant of Kohn
89. Bold , property
90. Pohl , origin from Poland; Relationship with Poland
91. Angel , first name, house name
92. Horn , name of residence, designation of origin
93. Bush , home name
94. Miner , name of residence (living on the mountain), job title
95. Thomas , first name
96. Voigt , professional title (advocatus, administrator)
97. Sauer , property (evil, grim)
98. Arnold , first name
99. Wolff , nickname or first name (Wolfgang, Wolfhard etc.) derived
100. Pfeiffer , job title (minstrel)

Regional differences

Although Müller is the most common name in the German language, are in some areas other surnames in the frequency before Müller . The common names Schmidt and Schmitz lead in the Central German-speaking area and in the Eastern Low German-speaking area. Meyer is especially in the Low German-speaking area, especially in Lower Saxony, before Müller , on the other hand Meyer is not a common name in Central Germany ( Meier-Loch ) because the job title there was mostly Hof (f) man. Bauer operates in the eastern Upper German-speaking region of Bavaria . The regional accumulation of rather rare names in the south and north is particularly interesting. Huber is the most common name in southern Bavaria with the exception of Munich . The patronyms Jans (s) en , Hansen and Petersen are common names in the north. Petersen is the most common name in the Flensburg , Jans (s) en or Janßen area on the Lower Rhine .

Slavic names

Above all in Saxony , Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , many surnames are of Slavic origin due to the predominantly Slavic-speaking settlement at the time of surnames (which continues to this day in Lusatia ), as well as in Austria .

As a result of the immigration of several 100,000 people (including around 130,000 " Ruhr Poles ") from the Polish language area to the old German language area from the middle of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia with a focus on the Ruhr area and in the area many residents of Berlin have Polish names, but the spelling is mostly "Germanized" (examples: Schimanski, Schymanietz, Matussek or Mattner, Koslowski, Wischnewski etc.). Around 13% of the population today have names of Slavic origin.

• 156. Nowak (Polish)
• 262. Noack (Sorbian)
• 435. Pietsch (Sorbian)
• 849. Kowalski (Polish)

Turkish names

The high number of immigrants from Turkey means that Turkish names appear relatively often.

• 587. Yılmaz
• 938. Kaya

Other countries of origin

Among the 5000 most common family names, the Vietnamese name Nguyen is also noticeably represented. This is because 40% of the Vietnamese population bear this name and after the Vietnam War many Vietnamese were granted asylum in Germany as so-called boat people or worked as guest workers in the GDR and stayed in Germany after reunification . In other countries with a larger number of Vietnamese immigrants, Nguyen is one of the more common surnames, for example in France (rank 54) or in the USA (rank 57). Worldwide, Nguyen is in fourth position of the most common family names in the world with around 36 million namesake and is only surpassed by Chinese names , the most common German family name Müller (approx. 1 million name carriers worldwide) comes in 10th.

• 815. Nguyen

literature

• Rosa and Volker Kohlheim: Duden family names, origin and meaning of 20,000 surnames . Duden, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-411-70852-2 .
• Konrad Kunze, Hans-Joachim Paul: dtv-Atlas onenology, first and last names in the German-speaking area . dtv, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-423-03234-0 .
• Hans Bahlow : German name lexicon, origin and meaning of 15,000 first and last names . Gondrom, Bindlach 20004, ISBN 3-8112-2271-6 .
• Max Gottschald : German naming, with an introduction to family naming by Rudolf Schützeichel . 5th edition, de Gruyter, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-11-008618-2 .
• Josef Karlmann Brechenmacher : Etymological dictionary of German family names . Two volumes. Starke, Limburg an der Lahn 1985, ISBN 3-7980-0355-6 .
• Horst Naumann: The big book of family names. Age, origin, meaning . Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-8289-1955-3 .
• Ernst Schwarz : German name research . Volume 1: Name and surname , Volume 2: Place and field names , German name research, Göttingen 1949–1950, OCLC 163125901

Individual evidence

1. ↑ wdr.de: The 50 most common family names in Germany
2. ↑ Geogen 4.1
3. ↑ Los 10 apellidos más populares del mundo… ¿Está el tuyo? In: NNC.mx , March 1, 2012, accessed November 2, 2019 (Spanish).