Jelinek
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a diminutive of Jelen
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈdʒɛɫənɪk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Jelinek is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CZCzechia1 in 1.1K(measured from records)
- SKSlovakia1 in 16K
- HRCroatia1 in 24K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 118 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈34,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a diminutive of Jelen. As a Jewish name it is mainly a translation of the Yiddish personal name Hirsh (see Hirsch).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Jelinek 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.
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: MVČR — living population register 2017; naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form). 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)
Jelinek 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 Czech, Czech surname meaning ‘deer’, like French Cerf.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
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)
- Adolf Jellinekb. 1821CZnot in their usual nameCzech rabbi (1821–1893)
- Hanns Jelinekb. 1901ATAustrian composer
- Žuži Jelinekb. 1920HRHungarian-born Croatian fashion stylist, designer and writer
- Frederick Jelinekb. 1932USCzech linguist (1932–2010)
- Otto Jelinekb. 1940CACanadian figure skater, politician and entrepreneur
- Maria Jelinekb. 1942CACanadian figure skater
- Elfriede Jelinekb. 1946ATAustrian playwright and novelist
- Ellen Mattssonb. 1973SEnot in their usual nameSwedish actress
- Tobias Jelinekb. 1977USAmerican actor
- Karina Jelinekb. 1981ARmodel
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 31 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.9K | #10,894 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.9K | #10,516 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.8K | #10,369 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 176 | #4,733 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost prezimena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 148 | — |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 41 | #11,597 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 40 | #34,400 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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
- 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 Jelinek come from?
- from a diminutive of Jelen. As a Jewish name it is mainly a translation of the Yiddish personal name Hirsh (see Hirsch). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Jelinek?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈdʒɛɫənɪk/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Jelinek mean?
- Recorded meaning: from a diminutive of Jelen.
- In which country does Jelinek have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 34 thousand people named Jelinek in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled jelinek.
- Where is Jelinek most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Jelinek is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 1.1 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Jelinek?
- In Czechia, the national register counted 9,812 people named Jelinek, about 1 in 1.1 thousand residents.
- How common is Jelinek compared with other names?
- In Czechia, Jelinek is the 118th most common surname of 114,573 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Jelinek?
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/jelinekThe 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, “Jelinek” — the 118th most common surname in Czechia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.