Tönjes
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Niederdeutsche Kurzform, wohl zu Antonius; zeigt Tön(n)jes/Toenjes-Variation
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/tʰøːnjəs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tönjes is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Zambia than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 78K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 692Kas Toenjes
- ZMZambia≈1 in 8.2K
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 Tönjes 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.
- Zambia (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 140 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,100 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Zambia, 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 Tonjes in AR Argentina, HM Heard & McDonald Islands, ZM Zambia and 1 more and Toenjes in US United States, BE Belgium, CD Congo - Kinshasa.
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)
Niederdeutsche Kurzform, wohl zu Antonius; zeigt Tön(n)jes/Toenjes-Variation. 604 Tokens, 3 Types.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tönjes 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZM Zambia | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | Tonjes | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 78K | listed | Tönjes | 59 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | — | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 158K | — | Toenjes | 1 |
| US United States | — | 481as Toenjes | 1 in 692K | 488 | Toenjes | 140 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈210 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Toenjes | 2 |
| AR Argentina | — | 15 | 1 in 3M | 15 | Tonjes | 9 |
| BZ Belize | — | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Tonjes | 1 |
| HM Heard & McDonald Islands | #380 | — | — | — | Tonjes | 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 2020; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Tönjes is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Patronym zu Antonius; Gleitlaut-j-Form innerhalb der n-/ng-Variation. 604 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, männl. Vom., niederdeutsch-friesi sche Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
Low German and Frisian: short form of Antonius (see ANTHONY ). Variant: Tönnies .
as a word
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)
- Albert Tönjesb. 1920DEGerman politician (1920–1980)
- Bernd Tönjesb. 1955DEGerman manager
- Anke TönjesDEresearcher
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 5 sources across 3 countries.
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- How do you pronounce Tönjes?
- A machine transcription gives /tʰøːnjəs/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Tönjes mean?
- Recorded meaning: Niederdeutsche Kurzform, wohl zu Antonius; zeigt Tön(n)jes/Toenjes-Variation.
- In which country does Tönjes have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.1 thousand people named Tönjes in Zambia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tonjes.
- How common is the name Tönjes?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 15 people named Tönjes, about 1 in 3.0 million residents.
- How common is Tönjes compared with other names?
- In Heard & McDonald Islands, Tönjes is the 380th most common surname of 1,376 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tönjes?
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/t%C3%B6njesThe 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, “Tönjes” — the 380th most common surname in Heard & McDonald Islands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.