Filz
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from filz ‘mossy ground; dense cloth; peasant, miser’; also Obd
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/fɪɫz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Filz is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 89K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 2.6M
- ATAustria≈1 in 52K
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)
- Sources
- 90 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 52K (inferred from the name graph)
≈900 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Austria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from filz ‘mossy ground; dense cloth; peasant, miser’; also Obd. fils ‘rock’
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Filz 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈900 est. | ≈1 in 89K | — | Filz | 67 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 338K | — | Filz | 1 |
| AT Austria | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Filz | 21 |
| US United States | 130 | 1 in 2.6M | 153 | Filz | 90 |
| IT Italy | ≈62 est. | ≈1 in 1M | — | Filz | 6 |
| BE Belgium | 15 | 1 in 781K | 15 | Filz | 9 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Filz is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, felt
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fro, inflection of fil (“son”):
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In frm, son (male child)
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)
- Michael Filzb. 1777DEGerman historian (1777-1854)
- Wilhelmina Filzb. 1915NLDutch Righteous Among the Nations
- Friedrieke Filzb. 1927ATAustrian fencer
- Walter Filzb. 1959DEGerman journalist
- Roland Filzb. 1963FRFrench politician
- Richard Filzb. 1967ATAustrian writer
- Jan Filzb. 1975CZbadminton player
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 16 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 153 | #119,572 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 138 | #116,835 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 130 | #130,610 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 15 | #56,268 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Filz come from?
- from filz ‘mossy ground; dense cloth; peasant, miser’; also Obd. fils ‘rock’ Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What are other forms of the name Filz?
- In the etymology graph, Felt, Filzen and Filzer are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Filz?
- A machine transcription gives /fɪɫz/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Filz mean?
- Recorded meaning: from filz ‘mossy ground; dense cloth; peasant, miser’; also Obd.
- In which country does Filz have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 900 people named Filz in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled filz.
- How common is the name Filz?
- In the United States, the national register counted 130 people named Filz in 2010, about 1 in 2.6 million residents.
What do you want to know about Filz?
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/filzThe 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, “Filz”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.