Defer

surname · Latin script

Meaning: To delay or postpone

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

/dfɛʁ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

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

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 48K(inferred from the name graph)
  • BEBelgium1 in 53K
  • ESSpain≈1 in 997K

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.

France (inferred from the name graph)

≈1,400 people, est.

Sources
191 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 48K (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

To delay or postpone.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Defer 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 Defer is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France≈1,400 est.≈1 in 48K173Defer191
US United States2971 in 1.1M303Defer13
BE Belgium2201 in 53K236Defer20
ES Spain≈50 est.≈1 in 997K—Defer2
PL Poland31 in 13M3——
CZ Czechia21 in 5.4M2——

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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Statbel — Noms de famille (family names); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)

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

  • English surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Defèr, Defér

  • Spanish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala

    Also written Défer

  • Czech surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia

    Also written Defér

  • Ukrainian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Ukraine, Russia

    Languages: Ukrainian, Russian

    Also written Дефер, Дэфэр

31 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)

Defer 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 Latin, second-person singular present active imperative of dēferō

    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.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

16001700180019002000Jean-Baptiste Defer, b. 1674Nicolas Defer de la Nouere, b. 1740Charlus, b. 1860Robert Defer, b. 1948Jacques Defer, b. 1950Gérard Defer, b. 1951Gilbert Defer, b. 1958Kaylee DeFer, b. 1986

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)

FormalMadame, Monsieur,Dear Defer, (English)
InformalMadame, Monsieur,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 15 sources across 6 countries.

Official registers attesting Defer
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000303#61,855
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010297#66,553
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1951288—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020281#74,224
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1941245—
BE BelgiumStatbel — Noms de famille (family names)—236#7,455
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1971231—
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)2008220#7,692
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1961220—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1981218—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1921191—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1991173—

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

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 Defer mean, and where does it come from?
To delay or postpone. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Defer?
A machine transcription gives /dfɛʁ/ (IPA) for French.
What are other forms of the name Defer?
In the etymology graph, Differ is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Defer have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 1.4 thousand people named Defer in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled defer.
How common is the name Defer?
In the United States, the national register counted 297 people named Defer in 2010, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.

What do you want to know about Defer?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Defer”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Defer parses inside a full name →