Wagen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from wagon/vehicle; also occupational names from 'wagon maker, driver'

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 4 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024

/ˈvaːɡən/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Wagen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

  • NONorway1 in 42K(measured from records)
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 138K
  • USUnited States≈1 in 2.5M

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (inferred from the name graph)

≈140 people, est.

Record sources
91 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

1 in 42K (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

from wagon/vehicle; also occupational names from 'wagon maker, driver'

Cited for this meaning 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Where the surname Wagen is found

(measured from records)

Wagen 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 Wagen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States≈140 est.≈1 in 2.5MlistedWagen91
NO Norway1301 in 42K130Wagen4
DE Germany≈62 est.≈1 in 1.4M—Wagen24
CH Switzerland611 in 138K61Wagen13
CA Canada≈29 est.≈1 in 1.4M—Wagen22
AT Austria≈10 est.≈1 in 901K—Wagen4

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: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)

Wagen is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Norwegian surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands

    Languages: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

    Also written Waagen, Wagén, Wågen

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Wågen

  • Japanese surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Japan

    Also written Wågen

28 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)

Wagen is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, Plate shows o/ö vowel variation in this surname type. Bearer count: 52.

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

  • In German, car, carriage

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German

  • In German, to dare, risk

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German

  • In German, a wheeled vehicle for transporting anything

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In enm, To employ, use, or utilise a person.

    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.

How to address them

(machine-generated)
FormalDear Colleague,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

6 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 4 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What are other forms of the name Wagen?
In the etymology graph, Wain, Waage and Vogn are forms of the same name in other languages.
What does the name Wagen mean, and where does it come from?
from wagon/vehicle; also occupational names from 'wagon maker, driver' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Wagen?
It depends on the language: in German /ˈvaːɡən/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /baɡɛn/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.
Which countries have the most people with the surname Wagen?
Mondonomo estimates about 137 people named Wagen in the United States, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wagen. After it come Norway, Germany, Switzerland and Canada; the country table on this page ranks them.
Where is Wagen most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Wagen is densest in Norway — about 1 in 42 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Wagen?
In Norway, the national register counted 130 people named Wagen, about 1 in 42 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Wagen?

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

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, “Wagen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Wagen parses inside a full name →