Brand

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: From the Germanic personal name Brando; or person living where burning has taken place; or a form of Brandt

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

Brand is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • NLNetherlands1 in 3.3K(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 3.4K
  • ZASouth Africa≈1 in 4.7K

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈24,000 people, est.

Sources
454 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From the Germanic personal name Brando; or person living where burning has taken place; or a form of Brandt.

Sources 1

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

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Brand is read(measured from records)

Brand 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.

  • English66%

    From the Germanic personal name Brando; or person living where burning has taken place; or a form of Brandt.

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

    from ODa Brand ‘fire-brand, sword’; first attested Brand 1193 P (Lo)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    Brand 1193 P (Lo); Jacobus filius Brand 1206 AssL; William Brant 1086 DB (Nf); Ralph Brand 1184 P (Lo); Hamo Brand, Brant, Braund 1203–P, StP (Lo), 1219 Cur (Beds); Richard Brawne 1661 Bardsley. ON Brandr, ODa Brand, ‘fire-brand, sword’, found also in Normandy.

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • German13%

    from ahd. brant 'firebrand'; also 'sword'

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

    Plate shows o/ö vowel variation in this surname type. Bearer count: 143.

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

    fire

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German

  • Spanish5.4%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Brand 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.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Brand 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 Brand is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#193≈24,000 est.≈1 in 3.4K—Brand184
US United States—19,1351 in 17K19KBrand454
ZA South Africa#597≈12,000 est.≈1 in 4.7K—Brand91
GB United Kingdom—≈5,800 est.≈1 in 11KlistedBrand221
NL Netherlands#1625,2511 in 3.3K5.3KBrand98
CH Switzerland#4652,7721 in 3K2.8KBrand71
KN St. Kitts & Nevis—131 in 4.1K13—6

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; the reaney-english-surnames-1991 register; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026. 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)

Brand is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Bran-D, Bränd, Brând, Brâńd, Brānd

  • Thai given name17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, Spain, United States, Netherlands

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written แบรนด์, Bernd, แบร์นด์, Baen, แบร์นด

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Bränd, Bran-D

  • Hindi surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, South Africa

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Brāñd

72 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)

1920194019601980Neville Brand, b. 1920Esther Brand, b. 1922Vance DeVoe Brand, b. 1931Abdullah Ibrahim, b. 1934Stewart Brand, b. 1938Steven Brand, b. 1969Michael Brand, b. 1973Russell Brand, b. 1975Elton Brand, b. 1979Katy Brand, b. 1979

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 50 sources across 29 countries.

Official registers attesting Brand
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201019K#1,879
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200019K#1,751
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202018K#1,918
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)20075.3K#149
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20242.8K#294
KN St. Kitts & NevisSt Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026202613#169
GB United KingdomA Dictionary of English Surnames (Reaney & Wilson, 1991)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 6

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 Brand mean, and where does it come from?
From the Germanic personal name Brando; or person living where burning has taken place; or a form of Brandt. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How common is the name Brand?
In the United States, the national register counted 19,135 people named Brand in 2010, about 1 in 17 thousand residents.
How common is Brand compared with other names?
In Germany, Brand is the 193rd most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
In which country does Brand have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 24 thousand people named Brand in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled brand.
Where is Brand most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Brand is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 3.0 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.

What do you want to know about Brand?

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

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, “Brand” — the 193rd most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Brand parses inside a full name →