Rüdel

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Patronym aus Kurzformen von Rudolf; Entrundung mhd

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

/ʁʏdl̩/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Rüdel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In American Samoa it is the 44th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 56K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 1.2M
  • ASAmerican Samoa≈1 in 4.5K

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,400 people, est.

Sources
146 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 4.5K (inferred from the name graph)

American Samoa, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Rudel in US United States, DE Germany, AS American Samoa and 1 more.

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)

recorded in German

Patronym aus Kurzformen von Rudolf; Entrundung mhd. ü(e) > i(e) in den Varianten. 20309 Tokens.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Rüdel 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 Rüdel is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany—≈1,400 est.≈1 in 56KlistedRudel93
PK Pakistan—≈560 est.≈1 in 419K—Rudel1
AR Argentina—3171 in 143K317—1
FR France—≈290 est.≈1 in 232K21—1
US United States—2891 in 1.2M364Rudel146
SI Slovenia—251 in 84K25—2
AS American Samoa#44≈11 est.≈1 in 4.5K—Rudel1

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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; the dfa-band-1 register; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)

Rüdel is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Rudel

  • Russian surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Türkiye

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Рудель, Rudel, Rudel', Рюдель, Рудел

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Arab Emirates, Egypt

    Also written Rudel

  • Hindi surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Also written Rudel

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Spain, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Rudel

  • Swahili surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States

    Also written Rudel

  • Croatian surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia

    Also written Rudel

3 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)

Rüdel 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 German, Kurzform zu Rüdiger; die Karte zeigt Tonvokal-Varianten Rü-/Rie-/Ry- in Kurzformen.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

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)

1400160018002000Johannes Rüdel, b. 1500Hugo Rüdel, b. 1868Günther Rüdel, b. 1883Hans-Carl Rüdel, b. 1906Walter Ruedel, b. 1931

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)

FormalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Dear Rüdel, (English)
InformalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 5 sources across 3 countries.

Official registers attesting Rüdel
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
DE GermanyDeutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1———

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

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

How do you pronounce Rüdel?
A machine transcription gives /ʁʏdl̩/ (IPA) for German.
What does the name Rüdel mean?
Recorded meaning: Patronym aus Kurzformen von Rudolf; Entrundung mhd.
In which country does Rüdel have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.4 thousand people named Rüdel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rudel.
How common is the name Rüdel?
In Argentina, the national register counted 317 people named Rüdel, about 1 in 143 thousand residents.
How common is Rüdel compared with other names?
In American Samoa, Rüdel is the 44th most common surname of 292 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Rüdel?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/r%C3%BCdel

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, “Rüdel” — the 44th most common surname in American Samoa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Rüdel parses inside a full name →