Appel

surname · Latin script

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

Appel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In English, recorded as An act of striking the ground with the leading foot to frighten, distract, or mislead one's opponent.

rarermore common
  • DKDenmark1 in 9.6K(measured from records)
  • USUnited States1 in 42K
  • CACanada≈1 in 35Kas Uppal

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 Appel 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.

United States (measured from records)

7,938 people, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
349 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 9.6K (inferred from the name graph)

Denmark

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

UppalLatin(measured from records)
อุปเปิลThai(measured from records)

Locally spelled Uppal in IN India.

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)

alternative form of Apfel (“apple”)

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 14 languages in the etymology graph.

How Appel is read(measured from records)

Appel is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English64%

    An act of striking the ground with the leading foot to frighten, distract, or mislead one's opponent.

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

  • German17%

    alternative form of Apfel (“apple”)

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

    s. Apel(t); Variante ohne/mit t-Antritt im gleichen Namenskomplex. 5342 Belege, v.a. Hessen, Pfalz, Unterfranken, Raum Ansbach–Ingolstadt.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

    Mehrere Siedlungsnamen; bei Obel im Niederdeutschen auch zu mnd. ovel „übel“ möglich. Die Karte zeigt Monophthongvarianz a/o sowie ä/ö.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

    Kurzform aus Albert/Albrecht (Adalberaht) via Abbo/Ap(p)o; zeigt a-/e-Varianten und ostmd. Verdumpfung. 20,509 Tokens.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

    Schreib- und Lautvariante zu Abel; die pp-Schreibung markiert die Kürze des vorausgehenden Vokals. 8542 Tokens.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Appel 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 Appel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—7,9381 in 42K7.9KAppel349
IN India—2,950as Uppal1 in 450K3KUppal161
BR Brazil—1,8641 in 114K1.9K—3
ID Indonesia—≈1,800 est.≈1 in 152K—Appel15
ZA South Africa—≈1,600 est.≈1 in 35K—Appel35
NL Netherlands—1,1821 in 15K1.2KAppel54
CA Canada—≈1,100 est.≈1 in 35K—Appel96
DK Denmark#6136101 in 9.6K610Appel67
FI Finland—3541 in 16K354Appel7
SE Sweden—3211 in 32K321Appel20

7,938 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: Instate — India surnames (clean spellings) from electoral rolls; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Appel is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Mexico, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Áppel, Appél, Àppel

  • Estonian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands

    Languages: Estonian, Finnish

    Also written Äppel

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, South Africa

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Appèl

  • Swahili surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Africa, Netherlands

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Appél, Àppel

43 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

1850190019502000Jan Appel, b. 1890Karel Appel, b. 1921Kenneth Appel, b. 1932Mike Appel, b. 1942Peter Appel, b. 1959Frank Appel, b. 1961Richard Appel, b. 1963Jacob M. Appel, b. 1973Eric Appel, b. 1980Jayne Appel, b. 1988
  • Jan Appelb. 1890DEGerman revolutionary (1890-1985)
  • Karel Appelb. 1921NLDutch painter, sculptor, and poet (1921-2006)
  • Kenneth Appelb. 1932USAmerican mathematician
  • Mike Appelb. 1942USAmerican music industry manager/record producer
  • Peter Appelb. 1959USAmerican actor
  • Frank Appelb. 1961DEGerman manager, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom AG, former CEO of Deutsche Post
  • Richard Appelb. 1963USAmerican writer and producer (born 1963)
  • Jacob M. Appelb. 1973USAmerican author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic (born 1973)
  • Eric Appelb. 1980USAmerican television director, editor, producer, writer
  • Jayne Appelb. 1988USAmerican basketball player (born 1988)

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 33 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Appel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020107.9K#4,473
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020007.9K#4,132
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020207.7K#4,509
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.9K#5,231
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)20071.2K#1,390
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—610#700
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—354#4,662
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—321#2,795
FI FinlandDVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register)—155—
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 6

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

Where does the name Appel come from?
alternative form of Apfel (“apple”) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What does the name Appel mean?
In English, An act of striking the ground with the leading foot to frighten, distract, or mislead one's opponent.
In which country does Appel have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 7.9 thousand people named Appel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled appel.
Where is Appel most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Appel is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 9.6 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Appel?
In the United States, the national register counted 7,938 people named Appel in 2010, about 1 in 42 thousand residents.
How common is Appel compared with other names?
In Denmark, Appel is the 613th most common surname of 88,366 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Appel?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/appel

The same 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), 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, “Appel” — the 613th most common surname in Denmark. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Appel parses inside a full name →