Rudolf
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rudolf is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 95th most common given name. In German, recorded as from Germanic *hrōþ- 'fame' + *wulf- 'wolf'.
- CZCzechia1 in 226(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 398
- ATAustria≈1 in 702
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Rudolf itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 250 (measured from records)
- 1 in 226 (inferred from the name graph)
≈200,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Czechia
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)
from Germanic Rudolf, literally ‘fame-wolf’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How Rudolf is read(measured from records)
Rudolf 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.
- German68%
from Germanic *hrōþ- 'fame' + *wulf- 'wolf'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
a male given name from Middle High German, equivalent to English Rudolph
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English11%
from Germanic Rudolf, literally ‘fame-wolf’
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
A male given name from Czech or German, equivalent to English Rudolph.
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Rudolf 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #95 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 398 | — | Rudolf | 241 |
| CZ Czechia | #122 | 47,420 | 1 in 226 | 47K | Rudolf | 127 |
| US United States | — | 18,795as Rudolph | 1 in 18K | 20K | Rudolf | 250 |
| AT Austria | #84 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 702 | 1K | Rudolf | 139 |
| ZA South Africa | #791 | ≈9,400 est. | ≈1 in 6K | — | Rudolf | 55 |
| SI Slovenia | #364 | 1,950 | 1 in 1.1K | 1.9K | Rudolf | 22 |
| GY Guyana | — | 956as Rudolph | 1 in 785 | 956 | — | 4 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; MVČR — living population register 2017; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); SURS — resident population given names; Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Rudolf 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.
From a Latinized version, Rudolphus, of the Germanic name Hrddwulf (see Rolf). It was introduced to the Englishspeaking world from Germany in the 19th century. Rudolf was a hereditary name among the Habsburgs, the Holy Roman Emperors and rulers of Austria, from the Emperor Rudolf I (1218-91) to
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In Czech, a male given name, equivalent to English Rudolph
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)
- Emperor Rudolf IIb. 1552ATHoly Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia and Archduke of Austria (1552-1612)
- Rudolf Clausiusb. 1822DEGerman mathematical physicist and professor (1822–1888)
- Rudolf Euckenb. 1846DE(1846-1926) German philosopher
- Heinrich Hertzb. 1857DEnot in their usual nameGerman physicist (1857–1894)
- Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austriab. 1858ATAustrian archduke (1858-1889)
- Rudolf Hessb. 1894DEGerman Nazi leader and Reich Minister without Portfolio (1894–1987)
- Rudolf Dasslerb. 1898DEGerman businessman (1898–1974)
- Rudolf Mössbauerb. 1929DEGerman nuclear physicist and Noble Prize in Physics
- Rudolf Schusterb. 1934SKSlovak President, head of Slovak National Council and politician
- Rudi Völlerb. 1960DEnot in their usual nameGerman footballer and manager (born 1960)
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 107 sources across 51 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 47K | #95 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 24K | #106 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 3.1K | #5,552 |
| SI Slovenia | SURS — resident population given names | 2025 | 1.9K | #119 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 1.9K | #261 |
| AT Austria | Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024) | 2024 | 1K | #632 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 4 | #5,552 |
Reference works 8
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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)
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 Rudolf come from?
- from Germanic Rudolf, literally ‘fame-wolf’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What does the name Rudolf mean?
- In German, from Germanic *hrōþ- 'fame' + *wulf- 'wolf'
- In which country does Rudolf have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 201 thousand people named Rudolf in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rudolf.
- Where is Rudolf most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Rudolf is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 226 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- Is Rudolf a male or female name?
- Rudolf is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Rudolf?
- In the etymology graph, Rodolfo, Rudolph and Rolf are forms of the same name in other languages; Rudi, Ruud and Ruedi are recorded short or pet forms.
- How common is the name Rudolf?
- In Czechia, the national register counted 47,420 people named Rudolf, about 1 in 226 residents.
- How common is Rudolf compared with other names?
- In Germany, Rudolf is the 95th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Rudolf?
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/rudolfThe 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, “Rudolf” — the 95th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.