Riesen

surname · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Riesen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Switzerland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: accusative singular of Riese.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 90K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 4.1K
  • NLNetherlands≈1 in 127K

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.

Switzerland (measured from records)

2,045 people, 2024

Sources
85 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 4.1K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

accusative singular of Riese

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Riesen 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.

Where Riesen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CH Switzerland#5332,0451 in 4.1K2KRiesen68
DE Germany—≈890 est.≈1 in 90K—Riesen74
US United States—6241 in 533K624Riesen80
NL Netherlands—≈140 est.≈1 in 127K—Riesen19
CA Canada—≈100 est.≈1 in 369K—Riesen16
FI Finland—271 in 206K27—1

2,045 people counted by BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames), 2024. 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: BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Riesen is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Canada, Australia, Switzerland

    Also written Rieşen

34 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Riesen is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Spanish, third-person plural imperfect subjunctive of reír

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

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)

1850190019502000Günther Riesen, b. 1892Armin Riesen, b. 1910Jean Riesen, b. 1920Martin Riesen, b. 1926Phil Riesen, b. 1943Irene Riesen, b. 1946Christian Riesen, b. 1970Sonja Riesen, b. 1979Michel Riesen, b. 1979Nadine Riesen, b. 2000

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 20 sources across 14 countries.

Reference works 2

  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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 Riesen mean, and where does it come from?
accusative singular of Riese Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Riesen have the most bearers?
In Switzerland, the national register counted about 2.0 thousand people named Riesen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled riesen.
Where is Riesen most common?
Riesen is densest in Switzerland, where the national register counts about 1 in 4.1 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Riesen?
In Switzerland, the national register counted 2,045 people named Riesen in 2024, about 1 in 4.1 thousand residents.
How common is Riesen compared with other names?
In Switzerland, Riesen is the 533rd most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Riesen?

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Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/riesen

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Riesen” — the 533rd most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Riesen parses inside a full name →