Höflich
surname · Latin script
Meaning: German surname in -lich; adjective-based formation from Höf- / höflich 'polite'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Höflich is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 80K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 815Kas Hoeflich
- ATAustria≈1 in 115K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Höflich itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 132 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 80K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Hoeflich in US United States, GB United Kingdom, ZA South Africa and 3 more and Hoflich in IE Ireland.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
German surname in -lich; adjective-based formation from Höf- / höflich 'polite'. Bearer count: 589.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Höflich counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 80K | listed | Höflich | 51 |
| US United States | — | 408as Hoeflich | 1 in 815K | 408 | Hoeflich | 132 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 643K | listed | Hoeflich | 9 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈77 est. | ≈1 in 115K | — | Höflich | 8 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈42 est. | ≈1 in 1.4M | — | Hoeflich | 5 |
| PL Poland | — | 25 | 1 in 1.5M | 15 | Hoeflich | 1 |
| LS Lesotho | — | ≈16 est. | ≈1 in 127K | — | Hoeflich | 1 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈14 est. | ≈1 in 375K | — | Hoflich | 1 |
| SC Seychelles | #543 | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Hoeflich | 1 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the dfa-band-3 register; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Höflich is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, trait surname: polite/courteous; bearer count not printed on this line
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, polite
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, polite (well-mannered)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Übername zu mhd./mnd. hovelich 'gebildet, höfisch, gesittet; fein'; -lich-Suffix. Bearer count: 616.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In German, from mhd. höfisch 'courtly, refined'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Georg Höflichb. 1854DEGerman stage actor and director (1854-1906)
- Luise Höflichb. 1856CZHolocaust victim (born 1856)
- Lucie Höflichb. 1883DEGerman actress (1883-1956)
- Egbert Höflichb. 1929DEGerman theologian and ministry official
- Joachim Höflichb. 1954DEGerman university teacher
- André Höflichb. 1997DEGerman snowboarder
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(measured from records)
Attested in 9 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 15 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 15 | #105,714 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 10 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 10 | #134,253 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 3 | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Höflich come from?
- German surname in -lich; adjective-based formation from Höf- / höflich 'polite'. Bearer count: 589. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen.
- What does the name Höflich mean?
- Recorded meaning: German surname in -lich; adjective-based formation from Höf- / höflich 'polite'.
- What are other forms of the name Höflich?
- In the etymology graph, Courtois is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Höflich have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 997 people named Höflich in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled höflich.
- How common is the name Höflich?
- In Poland, the national register counted 25 people named Höflich in 2026, about 1 in 1.5 million residents.
- How common is Höflich compared with other names?
- In the Seychelles, Höflich is the 543rd most common surname of 2,002 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Höflich?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/h%C3%B6flichThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Höflich” — the 543rd most common surname in Seychelles. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.