Kirchner
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Kirchner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Occupational surname: church warden/sexton (Kirchner); bearer count not stated on this page.
- USUnited States1 in 33K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 35K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 43K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 349 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 29K (inferred from the name graph)
≈49,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
China, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Occupational surname: church warden/sexton (Kirchner); bearer count not stated on this page.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kirchner 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈49,000 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Kirchner | 3 |
| US United States | — | 10,044 | 1 in 33K | 10K | Kirchner | 349 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 130K | — | Kirchner | 14 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 43K | listed | Kirchner | 77 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | Kirchner | 78 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 308 | 1 in 35K | 308 | — | 1 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 266 | 1 in 32K | 266 | Kirchner | 14 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #239 | — | — | — | Kirchner | 2 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; MVČR — living population register 2017; 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Kirchner is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from Middle High German kirchenaere ‘sexton’, hence an occupational name for a priest, an assistant at a church, or the administrator of church property and possessions.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, ton, from MHG kirchencere, a deriv. of kirche church (see Kirk). This is the regular term for the occupation in Thuringia; see also Kuster, Mesner, and Oppermann. The surname is also borne by Ashkenazic Jews, in which use it presumably originally referred to a sexton in a syna¬ gogue. Kirchstein see Christian Kirschner
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In German, ton, from MHG kirchencere, a deriv. of kirche church (see Kirilov Kissinger 298 Kirk). This is the regular term for the occupation in Thur¬ ingia; see also Kuster, Mesner, and Oppermann. The surname is also borne by Ashkenazic Jews, in which use it presumably originally referred to a sexton in a synagogue.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In German, habitational name for someone from a place called Kirchen.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, a common surname originating as an occupation
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)
- Theodor Kirchnerb. 1823DEGerman composer, conductor, pianist (1823–1903)
- Ernst Ludwig Kirchnerb. 1880DEGerman painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker (1880–1938)
- Friedrich Kirchnerb. 1885DEGerman general (1885-1960)
- Alicia Kirchnerb. 1946ARArgentine politician
- Néstor Kirchnerb. 1950ARPresident of Argentina from 2003 to 2007
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchnerb. 1953ARpresident of Argentina from 2007 to 2015
- Mark Kirchnerb. 1970DEEast German biathlete
- Máximo Kirchnerb. 1977ARArgentine politician
- Cynthia Kirchnerb. 1982USAmerican actress
- Shabier Kirchnerb. 2000AGAntiguan cinematographer and director
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.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 10K | #3,554 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 9.7K | #3,377 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.3K | #3,703 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 308 | #5,328 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 307 | #4,343 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 266 | #4,903 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- 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 Kirchner mean, and where does it come from?
- Occupational surname: church warden/sexton (Kirchner); bearer count not stated on this page. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- In which country does Kirchner have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 49 thousand people named Kirchner in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kirchner.
- How common is the name Kirchner?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,044 people named Kirchner in 2010, about 1 in 33 thousand residents.
- How common is Kirchner compared with other names?
- In Antigua & Barbuda, Kirchner is the 239th most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kirchner?
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/kirchnerThe 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, “Kirchner” — the 239th most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.