Brüning

Name: Brüning: recorded bearers, distribution and rank
Creator: Mondonomo
Published: 2026-10-13
License: https://mondonomo.ai/tos#rights

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Patronym mit Suffix -ing; ursprünglich 'zu Bruno gehörig' / 'Sohn des Bruno'

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 8 countries · latest register: CBG Familienamenbank, 2007

Pronunciation:

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

DEGermany≈1 in 13K(inferred from the name graph)
USUnited States1 in 112K
GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 220K

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 Brüning 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)
Record sources: 279 (measured from records)
: ≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

Spellings & scripts

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Bruning in US United States, NL Netherlands, IT Italy and 1 more and Bruening in BR Brazil, CD Congo - Kinshasa, SH St. Helena.

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

recorded in German

Patronym mit Suffix -ing; ursprünglich 'zu Bruno gehörig' / 'Sohn des Bruno'. 3544 Belege.

Cited for this meaning 1

Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

Brüning 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 Brüning is recorded, by country
Country					Most common spelling	Sources
DE Germany	#739	≈6,200 est.	≈1 in 13K	listed	Brüning	94
CD Congo - Kinshasa	—	≈4,500 est.	≈1 in 23K	—	Bruening	1
US United States	—	2,965	1 in 112K	3K	Bruning	279
BR Brazil	—	955	1 in 222K	955	Bruening	14
IT Italy	—	≈760 est.	≈1 in 82K	—	Bruning	2
NL Netherlands	—	640	1 in 27K	640	Bruning	34
BZ Belize	—	≈14 est.	≈1 in 28K	—	Bruning	1
SH St. Helena	#171	≈1 est.	≈1 in 7.4K	—	Bruening	1

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 dfa-band-3 register; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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

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

a separate name3 spellings in the group
Also written Brũning, Bruning
French surname3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in France, United States, Netherlands, Belgium
Also written Bruning
Hindi surname3 spellings in the group
Most recorded in United States, Netherlands
Languages: Hindi, Urdu
Also written Bruning

20 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

Brüning 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, aus dem Rufnamen Brüning/Brünink/Brünig/Brünings; aus *brūn 'braun, glänzend'
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, Patronymischer Familienname auf -ing; belegt mit 3625 Trägern. Morphologische Varianten: -ink, -ig, -ings, teils mit n-Ausfall.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
In German, Zu Brun(o) mit -ing; zeigt monophthongische und diphthongische Vokalvarianten. 11 Types / 4358 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Zu Bruno; Beleg für Vokalvariation mit Brü-/Bru-/Brüi- und verwandten Schreibungen. 4358 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Patronymische Bildung mit Suffix -ing, wohl zu einem Rufnamen wie Brun/Bruno; 22469 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

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

Hans Heinrich Brüningb. 1848DEGerman archaeologist (1848–1928)
Georg Brüningb. 1851DEGerman politician (1851-1932)
Edmund Brüningb. 1865DEGerman illustrator
Heinrich Brüningb. 1885DEGerman chancellor (1885-1970)
Elfriede Brüningb. 1910DEGerman writer (1910-2014)
Peter Brüningb. 1929DEGerman sculptor and painter (1929-1970)
Hannelore Brüningb. 1942DEGerman politician
Uschi Brüningb. 1947DEGerman singer-songwriter
Monika Brüningb. 1951DEGerman politician (1951–2022)
Barbara Brüningb. 1951DEGerman politician (SPD)

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

FormalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Dear Brüning, (English)

InformalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Hello, (English)

Evidence

11 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 8 countries.

Official registers attesting Brüning
Country	Register	Year	Count	Rank
NL Netherlands	CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)	2007	140	#14,388
DE Germany	Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 3	—	—	—

Reference works 2

Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Brüning mean?: Recorded meaning: Patronym mit Suffix -ing; ursprünglich 'zu Bruno gehörig' / 'Sohn des Bruno'.
In which country does Brüning have the most bearers?: Mondonomo estimates about 6.2 thousand people named Brüning in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled brüning.
How common is the name Brüning?: In the United States, the national register counted 2,965 people named Brüning in 2010, about 1 in 112 thousand residents.
How common is Brüning compared with other names?: In Germany, Brüning is the 739th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Brüning?

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/br%C3%BCning

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 2026-10-13 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, “Brüning” — the 739th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Brüning parses inside a full name →