German
15,717 people in the United States were counted with the surname German in the 2020 census, making it the 2,250th most common in the country. That is about one person in 19,000.
By the numbers
- People
- 15,717
- Rank
- 2,250th
- How common
- 1 in 19,000
- Per 100,000
- 5.3
Where the name comes from
From Latin Germānus, Germānī (“the peoples of Germānia”), as distinct from Gauls (in the writings of Caesar and Tacitus), and of uncertain ultimate origin (possibly cel/cel-gau).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname German described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called German
- Lauren German (born 1978)American actress
- Anna German (1936–1982)Polish singer, popular in Poland and in the Soviet Union
- Aleksei Yuryevich German (1938–2013)Soviet and Russian film director, screenwriter, actor and producer
- Aleksei Alekseivich German (born 1976)Russian film director and screenwriter
- Edward German (1862–1936)English musician and composer
- Yael German (born 1947)Israeli politician
People named German with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like German
Also a first name
German has been given to 10,295 American babies as a first name since 1882, peaking in 1991. 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.