Pfänder
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Pfand 'pledge, pawn'; also an occupational name for a bailiff/pledge-collector or pawnbroker
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 4 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈpfɛndɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Pfänder is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 26K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 56K
- CACanada≈1 in 650Kfew records
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 Pfänder 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)
- Record sources
- 95 (measured from records)
- 1 in 26K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,500 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Pfander in US United States, CH Switzerland, CA Canada and 2 more and Pfaender in BZ Belize.
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)from Pfand 'pledge, pawn'; also an occupational name for a bailiff/pledge-collector or pawnbroker
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Pfänder 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 | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 56K | listed | Pfänder | 62 |
| CH Switzerland | 329 | 1 in 26K | 329 | Pfander | 17 |
| US United States | 216 | 1 in 1.5M | 218 | Pfander | 95 |
| BR Brazil | ≈65 est. | ≈1 in 3.3M | — | Pfander | 5 |
| CA Canada | ≈64 est. | ≈1 in 646K | — | Pfander | 7 |
| BB Barbados | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Pfander | 1 |
| BZ Belize | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 151K | — | Pfaender | 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; the dfa-band-5 register; 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)Pfänder is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Pfänder (a mountain in Vorarlberg, Austria, near Bregenz and Lake Constance)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. pfant 'Pfand'; wohl Pfandnehmer/Pfandleiher. Bearer count: 697.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufs-/Amtsname zu mhd. phender, phander 'Pfandinhaber, Pfandgläubiger; obrigkeitlicher Pfänder'.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname: Pfandnehmer/Pfandverwalter; bearers count not given.
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)- Carl Heinrich Pfänderb. 1819DEGerman revolutionary (1819–1876)
- Wilhelm Pfänderb. 1826DEGerman-American politician (1826-1905)
- Alexander Pfänderb. 1870DEGerman philosopher (1870–1941)
- Max Pfänderb. 1900CH(1900-1969)
- Karl Albert Pfänderb. 1906DEGerman designer (1906–1990)
- Erwin Pfänderb. 1937DEGerman politician
- Stefan Pfänderb. 1969DEGerman Romance philologist
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)6 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 4 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Pfänder mean, and where does it come from?
- from Pfand 'pledge, pawn'; also an occupational name for a bailiff/pledge-collector or pawnbroker Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Pfänder?
- In German /ˈpfɛndɐ/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Pfänder have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.5 thousand people named Pfänder in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pfänder.
- Where is Pfänder most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Pfänder is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 26 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Pfänder?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 329 people named Pfänder in 2024, about 1 in 26 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Pfänder?
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/pf%C3%A4nderThe 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, “Pfänder”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.