Volker
given name · Latin script
Meaning: a male given name from Old High German
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɔlkʰɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Volker is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 100th most common given name.
- DEGermany≈1 in 457(inferred from the name graph)
- ATAustria≈1 in 6.7K
- USUnited States1 in 595K
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
- 260 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 457 (inferred from the name graph)
≈180,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, 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 Völker in NO Norway.
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)
a male given name from Old High German
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Volker 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 | #100 | ≈180,000 est. | ≈1 in 457 | 1 | Volker | 258 |
| AT Austria | #699 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | 82 | Volker | 90 |
| CH Switzerland | #744 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 6.6K | 111 | Volker | 60 |
| US United States | — | 559 | 1 in 595K | 2.5K | Volker | 260 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈550 est. | ≈1 in 103K | — | Volker | 31 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 35K | 8 | Volker | 29 |
| NO Norway | — | ≈97 est. | ≈1 in 56K | 160 | Völker | 15 |
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 de-leipzig-vornamen register; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Volker 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, Patronymischer Familienname aus ahd. folc, altsächs. folk 'Heerschar, Volk'; Kurzformen der Volk-/Folc-Gruppe.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, Gutturaler Plosiv; Schreibvarianten zu Volker/Volkers, wohl mit -k/-g bzw. -ck-Variation; 731 Tokens, 5 Types.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Patronym zum Rufnamen Volker; Nebenformen mit Umlaut und ll-Assimilation. Bearerzahl: 731.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, ) Folker; Volkher: alter deutscher männl. Vom. (ahd. folc »Haufe, Kriegsschar,
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In English, German; ‘people’s defender’.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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)
- Volker Strassenb. 1936DEGerman mathematician and algorithms researcher (b.1936)
- Volker Schlöndorffb. 1939DEGerman film director, screenwriter and film producer (born 1939)
- Volker Spenglerb. 1939DEGerman actor (1939-2020)
- Volker Braunb. 1939DEGerman writer
- Volker Finkeb. 1948DEGerman association football player and manager
- Volker Wiekerb. 1954DEGerman general
- Volker Türkb. 1965ATUnited Nations human rights chief
- Hauschkab. 1966DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer and pianist (born 1966)
- Volker Wissingb. 1970DEGerman politician, former Federal Minister for Digital and former Transport, former Federal Minister of Justice, former MP
- Volker Bruchb. 1980DEGerman actor
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 55 sources across 27 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 559 | #19,105 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 160 | #5,604 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2017 | 82 | #1,767 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1960 | 5 | — |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — Vornamen der Geborenen (1984–present) | 2017 | 1 | #3,599 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Leipzig Open Data — Vornamensstatistik Neugeborene | 2025 | 1 | #2 |
| DE Germany | Stadt Düsseldorf Open Data — Vornamen Neugeborene | 2020 | 1 | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Volker mean, and where does it come from?
- a male given name from Old High German Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Volker?
- A machine transcription gives /fɔlkʰɐ/ (IPA) for German.
- Is Volker a male or female name?
- Volker is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Volker have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 175 thousand people named Volker in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled volker.
- How common is the name Volker?
- In the United States, the national register counted 559 people named Volker in 2020, about 1 in 595 thousand residents.
- How common is Volker compared with other names?
- In Germany, Volker is the 100th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Volker?
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/volkerThe 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, “Volker” — the 100th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.