Knopf
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: ‘Button-maker’, from German Knopf ‘button’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈnɑf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Knopf is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 130K(measured from records)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 52K
- CZCzechia1 in 145K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 170 (measured from records)
- 1 in 52K (inferred from the name graph)
2,556 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘Button-maker’, from German Knopf ‘button’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
How Knopf is read(measured from records)
Knopf 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.
- English63%
‘Button-maker’, from German Knopf ‘button’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- German21%
from Knopf 'button'; also 'hill, bud, knot'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Atlas plate on p/pf variation in names with Knopf/Kopf/Kropf/klopfen/zapfen; includes Knopf/Knopp.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
personal characteristic: button-shaped; round/stubby
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
cupational name for a maker of buttons, normally of horn, from Ger. Knopf button (MHG, OHG knopf, like other words in kn- originally descriptive of a swelling or lump).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Knopf 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,556 | 1 in 130K | 2.6K | Knopf | 170 |
| BR Brazil | 795 | 1 in 266K | 795 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 162 | 1 in 52K | 162 | Knopf | 23 |
| PL Poland | 128 | 1 in 299K | 75 | Knopf | 2 |
| CZ Czechia | 74 | 1 in 145K | 74 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | 50 | 1 in 204K | 50 | Knopf | 6 |
2,556 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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017; 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Knopf 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.
from Middle High German knopf ‘swelling’, ‘lump’, ‘knob’, ‘button’, ‘glob’, modem German Knopf, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of buttons, normally of horn; a nickname for a small, rotund man (especially in Swabia, where the term also has the sense ‘dumpling’); or a topographic name for someone who lived by a rounded hillock.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Philip Knopfb. 1847USAmerican politician (1847–1920)
- Adolph Knopfb. 1882USAmerican geologist (1882-1966)
- Eleanora Knopfb. 1883USAmerican geologist
- Olga Knopfb. 1888USAustrian-born gynecologist and psychoanalyst
- Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.b. 1892USAmerican publisher (1892-1984)
- Blanche Wolf Knopfb. 1894USAmerican book publisher (1894–1966)
- Edwin H. Knopfb. 1899USAmerican film director, producer and screenwriter (1899–1981)
- Christopher Knopfb. 1927USAmerican screenwriter (1927-2019)
- Chris Knopfb. 1951USAmerican novelist
- Brigitte Knopfb. 1973DEGerman climatologist
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).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 27 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.6K | #12,188 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.5K | #11,405 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.5K | #12,118 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 795 | #11,330 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 162 | #7,462 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 75 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 75 | #37,026 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 74 | #21,540 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 74 | #8,844 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 53 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 53 | #48,218 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 50 | #12,726 |
Reference works 6
- 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
- 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 Knopf mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Button-maker’, from German Knopf ‘button’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Knopf?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈnɑf/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Knopf?
- In the etymology graph, Knoop and Knauf are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Knopf have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.6 thousand people named Knopf, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled knopf.
- Where is Knopf most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Knopf is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 52 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Knopf?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,556 people named Knopf in 2010, about 1 in 130 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Knopf?
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/knopfThe 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, “Knopf”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.