Kiefer

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kiefer is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In English, recorded as Person who lives in a pine forest or by a pine tree; barrel-maker; or a German nickname for a greedy or truculent person.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 4.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 30K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 10K

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)

≈71,000 people, est.

Sources
383 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

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

Germany, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Person who lives in a pine forest or by a pine tree; barrel-maker; or a German nickname for a greedy or truculent person.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

How Kiefer is read(measured from records)

Kiefer 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.

  • English63%

    Person who lives in a pine forest or by a pine tree; barrel-maker; or a German nickname for a greedy or truculent person.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • German21%

    from Küfer; tree-name sense is not original here

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

    ornamental name from German Kiefer ‘pine tree’. This word, which is first attested in the early 15th century, is a blend of kien and forhe, both meaning ‘pine’. The two elements still have a separate existence; kieboom is the Dutch term for a pine tree, while in many parts of Germany the word for the tree is Fdhre.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    occupational name for a cooper or the overseer of a wine cellar, from an agent derivative of Middle High German kuofe ‘vat’, ‘barrel’ (from Latin cupa).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    from an agent derivative of Middle High German kiffen ‘to quarrel’, hence a nickname for a bickerer.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    many for a cooper, from an agent deriv. of Ger. dial. Kief(e), Ger. Kufe barrel (MHG kuofe, OHG kuofa); a cogn. of Eng. Cooper. 2. topographic name for someone who lived in a pine forest or by an isolated pine tree, from Keyte see Kite

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

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)

Kiefer 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 Kiefer is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈71,000 est.≈1 in 20K—Kiefer5
DE Germany#308≈18,000 est.≈1 in 4.5K—Kiefer162
US United States—11,1411 in 30K11KKiefer383
BR Brazil—1,5741 in 135K1.6K—1
FR France—≈1,500 est.≈1 in 44K167—5
CH Switzerland—8341 in 10K834Kiefer52
AT Austria—≈540 est.≈1 in 17K—Kiefer38

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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); 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)

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

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Argentina, Chile

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kiéfer

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Switzerland, Canada

    Also written Kiéfer

  • Polish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Slovakia, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Kîêfêr

51 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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

190019201940196019802000Adolph Kiefer, b. 1918Jack Kiefer, b. 1924Anselm Kiefer, b. 1945Thomas Kiefer, b. 1958Mark Kiefer, b. 1968Dorkas Kiefer, b. 1972Nicolas Kiefer, b. 1977Vinzenz Kiefer, b. 1979Severin Kiefer, b. 1990Lee Kiefer, b. 1994

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 54 sources across 29 countries.

Official registers attesting Kiefer
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201011K#3,240
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#3,087
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202010K#3,362
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.6K#6,078
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024834#1,445
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991167—
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 7

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 does the name Kiefer mean, and where does it come from?
Person who lives in a pine forest or by a pine tree; barrel-maker; or a German nickname for a greedy or truculent person. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Kiefer have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 71 thousand people named Kiefer in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kiefer.
How common is the name Kiefer?
In the United States, the national register counted 11,141 people named Kiefer in 2010, about 1 in 30 thousand residents.
How common is Kiefer compared with other names?
In Germany, Kiefer is the 308th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kiefer?

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

The 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, “Kiefer” — the 308th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kiefer parses inside a full name →