Wager
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A bet; a stake; a pledge
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/wejdʒɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wager is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Congo - Kinshasa than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 64K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 97K
- DEGermany≈1 in 136K
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.
- Congo - Kinshasa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 289 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 19K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,400 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Congo - Kinshasa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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 bet; a stake; a pledge.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wager 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | #879 | ≈5,400 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Wager | 1 |
| US United States | — | 3,428 | 1 in 97K | 3.4K | Wager | 289 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 64K | 1.5K | Wager | 113 |
| DZ Algeria | — | ≈620 est. | ≈1 in 69K | — | Wager | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈590 est. | ≈1 in 136K | — | Wager | 66 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 311 | 1 in 27K | 311 | Wager | 18 |
| FI Finland | — | 122 | 1 in 46K | 122 | Wager | 6 |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈54 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Wager | 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Wager is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Berufsname: Waagmeister an der Stadtwaage; 188 Bearer.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In enm, alternative form of wajour
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)
- Charles Wagerb. 1666GBRoyal Navy admiral (1666-1743)
- Lasse Wagerb. 1896FIFinnish stage actor (1896-1986)
- Lawrence Rickard Wagerb. 1904GBBritish explorer (1904–1965)
- John Wagerb. 1905USAmerican football player (1905-1982)
- Clint Wagerb. 1920USAmerican sportsperson, gridiron football player and basketball player (1920-1996)
- Leif Wagerb. 1922FIFinland Swedish actor and singer (1922–2002)
- Walter Wagerb. 1924USAmerican novelist (1924-2004)
- Michael Wagerb. 1925USAmerican actor (1925-2011)
- Mattias Wagerb. 1967SESwedish organplayer
- Henrik Wagerb. 1969GBBritish singer
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 27 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.4K | #9,488 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.3K | #9,064 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.2K | #9,717 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.5K | #4,872 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 122 | #11,020 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register) | — | 59 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Wikipedia surname 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Wager mean, and where does it come from?
- A bet; a stake; a pledge. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Wager?
- A machine transcription gives /wejdʒɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wager have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.4 thousand people named Wager in Congo - Kinshasa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wager.
- How common is the name Wager?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,428 people named Wager in 2010, about 1 in 97 thousand residents.
- How common is Wager compared with other names?
- In Congo - Kinshasa, Wager is the 879th most common surname of 44,726 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wager?
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/wagerThe 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, “Wager” — the 879th most common surname in Congo - Kinshasa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.