Germain

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Germain is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country. In Haiti it is the 6th most common surname. In French, recorded as From Latin Germanus, 'brotherly, of the same stock'; St Germain.

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 3.9K(inferred from the name graph)
  • CACanada≈1 in 10K
  • USUnited States1 in 45K

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.

France (inferred from the name graph)

≈17,000 people, est.

Sources
323 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 1.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Dominica

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From Latin Germanus, 'brotherly, of the same stock'; St Germain.

Sources 1

  • Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

How Germain is read(measured from records)

Germain 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.

  • French47%

    From Latin Germanus, 'brotherly, of the same stock'; St Germain.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

    Du nom latin Germānus, de germānus « frère germain ».

    as a nameDictionnaire des noms de famille du Canada français. Anthroponymie et généalogie. 2e édition

    Du latin germanus, « né du même père/même mère »; nom de saints Germain, notamment saint Germain d’Auxerre et saint Germain de Paris.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

    Du latin Germanus, « frère, germain »; saint Germain d’Auxerre et de Paris, fêté le 31 juillet.

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

    Du latin *germanus*, « frère germain; originaire de Germanie ».

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • English44%

    A surname transferred from the given name.

    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)

Germain 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 Germain is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France#126≈17,000 est.≈1 in 3.9K33KGermain323
HT Haiti#6≈9,200 est.≈1 in 1.2K—Germain19
US United States—7,3321 in 45K7.7KGermain250
CA Canada—≈3,700 est.≈1 in 10K1Germain170
GB United Kingdom—≈2,200 est.≈1 in 30K—Germain51
GP Guadeloupe—≈190 est.≈1 in 2.4K5—10
DM Dominica—741 in 1K74——
MQ Martinique—≈53 est.≈1 in 8.2K5—9

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: INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (births by department), dpt 972 (Martinique); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (births by department), dpt 971 (Guadeloupe). 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)

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

  • English surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Germaín, Gérmain, Gërmãîn, Germaîn, Germáin

  • Spanish surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Chile, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Germaín, Germáin, Germaìn, G̶e̶r̶m̶a̶i̶n̶, Germaïn

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Germaïn

  • Indonesian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Gérmain

78 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)

1700180019002000George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, b. 1716Sophie Germain, b. 1776Henri Germain, b. 1824Sylvie Germain, b. 1954Paul Germain, b. 1959Bruno Germain, b. 1960Jean-Marc Germain, b. 1966Philippe Germain, b. 1968Valère Germain, b. 1990Ryo Germain, b. 1995

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 80 sources across 48 countries.

Official registers attesting Germain
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020207.7K#4,493
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020107.3K#4,816
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020006.4K#5,044
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19912.4K—
DM DominicaDominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025202574#154

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Germain mean, and where does it come from?
From Latin Germanus, 'brotherly, of the same stock'; St Germain. Recorded by Dictionnaire généalogique des prénoms.
What are other forms of the name Germain?
In the etymology graph, Germano is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Germain have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Germain in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled germain.
Where is Germain most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Germain is densest in Dominica — about 1 in 1.0 thousand people — even though France holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Germain?
In the United States, the national register counted 7,332 people named Germain in 2010, about 1 in 45 thousand residents.
How common is Germain compared with other names?
In France, Germain is the 126th most common surname of 1,200,812 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Germain?

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

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, “Germain” — the 126th most common surname in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Germain parses inside a full name →