Durst

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: simple past of dare

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

Durst is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 32K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 55K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 9K

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.

United States (measured from records)

5,995 people, 2010

Sources
347 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 9.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

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)

either from Dursch, or from mhd. durst 'thirst'; also 'boldness'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Durst is read(measured from records)

Durst 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.

  • English80%

    simple past of dare

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

    of dare, 1a = to have the heart

    as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language

  • German7.0%

    either from Dursch, or from mhd. durst 'thirst'; also 'boldness'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    thirst

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

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)

Durst 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 Durst is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—5,9951 in 55K6KDurst347
DE Germany—≈2,500 est.≈1 in 32K—Durst107
CH Switzerland#7809341 in 9K934Durst28
KP North Korea—≈760 est.≈1 in 34K—Durst2
AT Austria—≈690 est.≈1 in 13K—Durst21
IE Ireland—≈150 est.≈1 in 35K—Durst2

5,995 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)

Durst is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Dürst

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Dürst

  • Polish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Czechia, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Dürst, Dűrst

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait

    Also written Dürst

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Switzerland, United Kingdom

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Dürst

  • Danish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Denmark, Åland Islands, Iceland

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Dürst

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)

Durst is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In yol, crossed

    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)

1850190019502000Joseph Durst, b. 1882Alan Durst, b. 1883André Durst, b. 1907Seymour Durst, b. 1913Robert Durst, b. 1943Douglas Durst, b. 1944Will Durst, b. 1952Dalit Lahav-Durst, b. 1956Fred Durst, b. 1970Sarah Beth Durst, b. 1974

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 23 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Durst
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020106K#5,780
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020005.8K#5,483
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020205.7K#5,822
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202459#16,414
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

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 Durst come from?
either from Dursch, or from mhd. durst 'thirst'; also 'boldness' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
What are other forms of the name Durst?
In the etymology graph, Dorst is a form of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Durst mean?
In English, simple past of dare
In which country does Durst have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 6.0 thousand people named Durst, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled durst.
Where is Durst most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Durst is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 9.0 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Durst?
In the United States, the national register counted 5,995 people named Durst in 2010, about 1 in 55 thousand residents.
How common is Durst compared with other names?
In Switzerland, Durst is the 780th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Durst?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

The 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, “Durst” — the 780th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Durst parses inside a full name →