Kress
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Occupational surname from the Nahrungsmittelgewerbe; likely linked to kress- 'cress'
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 18 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
Kress is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 21Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- JMJamaica≈1 in 25Kfew records
- USUnited States1 in 44K
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)
- Record sources
- 338 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 21K (inferred from the name graph)
7,528 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Occupational surname from the Nahrungsmittelgewerbe; likely linked to kress- 'cress'. Bearer count: 4208 tokens.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Kress 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 | — | 7,528 | 1 in 44K | 7.5K | Kress | 338 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 64K | — | Kress | 53 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈780 est. | ≈1 in 53K | — | Kress | 83 |
| FR France | — | ≈530 est. | ≈1 in 129K | 69 | — | 2 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Kress | 43 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Kress | 4 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 48K | — | Kress | 1 |
| JM Jamaica | #422 | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Kress | 1 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈29 est. | ≈1 in 48K | 19 | — | 3 |
7,528 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; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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)Kress 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, Personal-characteristic surname; exact trait/derivation not given on this page.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname (indirekter Fischername) zu mhd. kresse/kras(se) 'Gründling'; Typen mit Belegzahlen: Kress 4208, Kresse 976, Kressel 218, Kreßmann 489, Kraß 550, Kräß 69.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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)- Wilhelm Kressb. 1836RUAustrian aviation pioneer (1836-1913)
- Samuel Henry Kressb. 1863USAmerican businessman and philanthropist (1863-1955), founder of the S. H. Kress & Co. five and ten cent store chain
- Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressensteinb. 1870DEGerman general (1870–1948)
- Harold F. Kressb. 1913USAmerican film editor (1913-1999)
- Carl Kressb. 1937USAmerican film editor
- Nancy Kressb. 1948USAmerican science fiction writer (1948-)
- Viktor Kressb. 1948RURussian politician
- Ronna Kressb. 1959USAmerican casting director
- Eric Kressb. 1962CHDanish cinematographer
- Nathan Kressb. 1992USAmerican actor (born 1992)
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)31 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.5K | #4,711 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 7.3K | #4,489 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.8K | #4,997 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 102 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 100 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 84 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 69 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 69 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 67 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 65 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 52 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 51 | — |
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
- Where does the name Kress come from?
- Occupational surname from the Nahrungsmittelgewerbe; likely linked to kress- 'cress'. Bearer count: 4208 tokens. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- What does the name Kress mean?
- Recorded meaning: Occupational surname from the Nahrungsmittelgewerbe; likely linked to kress- 'cress'.
- In which country does Kress have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 7.5 thousand people named Kress, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kress.
- How common is the name Kress?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,528 people named Kress in 2010, about 1 in 44 thousand residents.
- How common is Kress compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Kress is the 422nd most common surname of 50,451 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kress?
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/kressThe 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, “Kress” — the 422nd most common surname in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.