Irrgang
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nickname for a wanderer, from Middle High German irreganc ‘aimless, meadering, restless gait’
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 10 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈɪʁɡaŋ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Irrgang is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Germany.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- AUAustralia
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)nickname for a wanderer, from Middle High German irreganc ‘aimless, meadering, restless gait’.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world
(measured from records)Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)Irrgang is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Berufs-/Merkmalsname zu mhd. 'irreganc' = irrer, ruheloser Gang.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Personenname nach persönlichem Merkmal: „irr-/irren, umhergehen“; wohl für einen unruhigen, umherirrenden Menschen. Bearer count: 1144.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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)- Bernhard Irrgangb. 1869PLGerman organist (1869–1916)
- Fritz Emil Irrgangb. 1890DEGerman politician (1890-1951)
- Horst Irrgangb. 1929DEGerman composer, conductor and musicologist (1829-1897)
- Brigitte Irrgangb. 1943DEGerman schoolgirl and martyr
- Vera Irrgangb. 1946DEEast-German actress (1946-2021)
- Bernhard Irrgangb. 1953DEGerman philosopher and theologian (1953–2024)
- Eva Irrgangb. 1957DEGerman politician
- Christian Irrgangb. 1957DEPhotographer
- Detlef Irrgangb. 1966DEGerman footballer
- Andreas IrrgangDEresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-0465-3725
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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)18 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 253 | #76,029 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 246 | #73,412 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 244 | #83,139 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 21 | — |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 14 | #57,082 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 11 | #56,728 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 8 | #134,434 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 6 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 6 | #178,348 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 5 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 5 | #199,126 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024) | — | 3 | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- What does the name Irrgang mean, and where does it come from?
- nickname for a wanderer, from Middle High German irreganc ‘aimless, meadering, restless gait’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Irrgang?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɪʁɡaŋ/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Irrgang have the most bearers?
- Irrgang is most frequently recorded in Germany.
What do you want to know about Irrgang?
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/irrgangThe 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, “Irrgang”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.