Brugger

surname · Latin script

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

Brugger is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Switzerland it is the 85th most common surname. Recorded meaning: Zu mhd. brücke/brücke 'Brücke'; die Karte zeigt Tonvokal-Varianten mit u/ü, v.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 2.3K(measured from records)
  • ATAustria≈1 in 4.1K
  • DEGermany≈1 in 20K

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)

≈4,000 people, est.

Sources
224 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 2.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Brügger 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)

recorded in German

Zu mhd. brücke/brücke 'Brücke'; die Karte zeigt Tonvokal-Varianten mit u/ü, v. a. Brugger, Brucker, Brücker u. a.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Brugger 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 Brugger is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany—≈4,000 est.≈1 in 20K—Brugger115
CH Switzerland#853,6801 in 2.3K3.7KBrugger60
US United States—2,4051 in 138K2.4KBrugger224
AT Austria#195≈2,200 est.≈1 in 4.1K—Brugger78
BR Brazil—8341 in 254K834—2
NO Norway—941 in 58K94Brügger8
UY Uruguay—441 in 77K44——

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; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)

Brugger is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Portuguese surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Argentina, United States, Switzerland

    Languages: Portuguese, Spanish

    Also written Brügger, Brûgger

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Brügger

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States, Switzerland

    Also written Brügger

  • Russian surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Türkiye

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian

    Also written Бруггер, Брюггер, Brügger, Брюґґер

  • Finnish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Switzerland, United States

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Brügger

44 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)

Brugger 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, Herkunfts-/Wohnstättenname zu Brugg/Brücke mit -er; zeigt den regionalen Wechsel von B/P sowie u/ü/Vokalismus. Morphologisch: -er-Ableitung, Dialekt-/Schreibvarianten. 3635 Träger.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Herkunfts- und Wohnstättenname zu Brücke; zeigt die ungemautete Vokalvariante -ugg-. 207 Träger.

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

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)

190019502000Ernst Brugger, b. 1914Karl Brugger, b. 1941Winfried Brugger, b. 1950Kurt Brugger, b. 1969Janai Brugger, b. 1983Agnieszka Brugger, b. 1985Nathalie Brugger, b. 1985Hazel Brugger, b. 1993Janosch Brugger, b. 1997Elena Brugger, b. 1997

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 28 sources across 18 countries.

Official registers attesting Brugger
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.4K#12,821
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.2K#12,767
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.1K#13,728
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20241.3K#870
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—834#10,868
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—94#16,082
UY UruguayINE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public)—44—
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

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 Brugger mean?
Recorded meaning: Zu mhd. brücke/brücke 'Brücke'; die Karte zeigt Tonvokal-Varianten mit u/ü, v.
In which country does Brugger have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 4.0 thousand people named Brugger in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled brugger.
Where is Brugger most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Brugger is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 2.3 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Brugger?
In Switzerland, the national register counted 3,680 people named Brugger in 2024, about 1 in 2.3 thousand residents.
How common is Brugger compared with other names?
In Switzerland, Brugger is the 85th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Brugger?

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

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, “Brugger” — the 85th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Brugger parses inside a full name →