Janker
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A traditional Alpine jacket made of fulled sheep's wool
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/jankɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Janker is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 48K(inferred from the name graph)
- ATAustria≈1 in 58K
- AOAngola≈1 in 241K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 80 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 48K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A traditional Alpine jacket made of fulled sheep's wool
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Janker 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 | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 48K | — | Janker | 80 |
| AT Austria | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 58K | — | Janker | 22 |
| AO Angola | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 241K | — | Janker | 1 |
| US United States | ≈71 est. | ≈1 in 4.7M | listed | Janker | 58 |
| BR Brazil | 26 | 1 in 8.1M | 26 | — | 1 |
| SE Sweden | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 1.2M | — | Janker | 3 |
| CH Switzerland | 4 | 1 in 2.1M | 4 | Janker | 6 |
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: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (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)
Janker 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, zu Janker/Janker 'kurzes Obergewand, Jacke, Joppe'; süddeutscher Familienname.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname oder Bezugsname zu Janker < tschech./poln. Janka (zu Johannes) bzw. zu einem Kleidungsstücksnamen; 750 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Herkunft/Herleitung im Text nicht erklärt; Bearer counts: Jan(c)ker 707+25, Jänker 18.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, wohl Eindeutschung zu tschech./poln. Janka, patronymisch zu Jan/Johann; 707 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, Bavarian 'jacket, coat'
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)
- Robert Jankerb. 1894DEGerman radiologist
- Josef W. Jankerb. 1922DEGerman writer (1922–2010)
- Christoph Jankerb. 1985DEGerman association football player
- Michael Jankerb. 1992DEGerman sports shooter
- Lukas JankerATresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-3084-2212
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)
Attested in 11 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 26 | #164,002 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 4 | #118,617 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 Janker mean, and where does it come from?
- A traditional Alpine jacket made of fulled sheep's wool Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Janker?
- A machine transcription gives /jankɐ/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Janker have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.7 thousand people named Janker in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled janker.
- How common is the name Janker?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 26 people named Janker, about 1 in 8.1 million residents.
What do you want to know about Janker?
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/jankerThe 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, “Janker”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.