Sander
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A person employed to sand wood
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/sændɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Sander is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 2.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 37K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 55K
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 Sander 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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 355 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.8K (inferred from the name graph)
≈29,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Germany, 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)
from a short form of Alexander, Greek 'defender of men'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.
How Sander is read(measured from records)
Sander is one spelling over 3 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.
- English50%
A person employed to sand wood.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German27%
from a short form of Alexander, Greek 'defender of men'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Kurzform zu Alexander; die Platte zeigt die Dentale-Variation S-/Z-/X- in den Schreibungen. Belegzahlen: Sander 13776, Zander 6923, Xander 97.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Patronymischer Familienname; S/Z-Varianz im Anlaut. Bearer count in NL/BE/LU: 504+10208, 137+2130, 15+0.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Kurzform/Patronym zu Alexander; Typ demonstriert S/Z-Variation im Anlaut. 13776 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
- Spanish6.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Sander in Spanish.
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.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Sander, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sander 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 | #137 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.8K | listed | Sander | 196 |
| US United States | — | 9,090 | 1 in 37K | 27K | Sander | 355 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 79K | — | Sander | 7 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 55K | 60 | Sander | 106 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,189as Zander | 1 in 8.6K | 1.2K | Sander | 41 |
| DK Denmark | — | 1,049 | 1 in 5.6K | 2.4K | — | 3 |
| NO Norway | — | 534 | 1 in 10K | 39K | — | 46 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | 60 | Sander | 47 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Siseministeerium — newborn names. 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)
Sander 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 Swedish, Sander är ursprungligen en tysk smekform till → Alexander. Namnet hade en viss popu laritet under 1800-talet i Sverige.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Frederik Sanderb. 1847BEGerman-born horticulturist and botanist (1847-1920)
- August Sanderb. 1876DEGerman photographer (1876-1964)
- Erna Sanderb. 1914DEGerman costume designer (1914-1991)
- Maria Sanderb. 1924DEGerman sprinter (1924-1999)
- Otto Sanderb. 1941DEGerman film, theater, and voice actor (1941–2013)
- Jil Sanderb. 1943DEGerman fashion designer (born 1943)
- Casey Sanderb. 1956USAmerican actor
- Mart Sanderb. 1967EEEstonian singer, actor, director, author, and television host (born 1967)
- Eivind Sanderb. 1973NONorwegian actor
- Taylor Sanderb. 1992USAmerican volleyball player
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 84 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 9.1K | #3,906 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.7K | #3,726 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 8.2K | #4,172 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 1K | #381 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 534 | #2,510 |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 267 | — |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 243 | #186 |
Reference works 10
- 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)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 are other forms of the name Sander?
- In the etymology graph, Iskandar, Zander and Aca are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Sander?
- A machine transcription gives /sændɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- Where does the name Sander come from?
- from a short form of Alexander, Greek 'defender of men' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What does the name Sander mean?
- In English, A person employed to sand wood.
- In which country does Sander have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 29 thousand people named Sander in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sander.
- How common is the name Sander?
- In the United States, the national register counted 9,090 people named Sander in 2010, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
- How common is Sander compared with other names?
- In Germany, Sander is the 137th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Sander?
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/sanderThe 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, “Sander” — the 137th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.