Finkelstein
surname · Latin script
Meaning: invented Jewish name from Yiddish, literally ‘sparkle-stone’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈfɪŋkəɫˌstaɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Finkelstein is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 57K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 72K
- ILIsrael≈1 in 13K
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)
- Sources
- 354 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)
≈18,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Israel, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
invented Jewish name from Yiddish, literally ‘sparkle-stone’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Finkelstein 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | ≈18,000 est. | ≈1 in 79K | — | Finkelstein | 3 |
| PK Pakistan | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Finkelstein | 1 |
| US United States | 4,591 | 1 in 72K | 4.8K | Finkelstein | 354 |
| IL Israel | ≈690 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Finkelstein | 55 |
| CA Canada | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 57K | — | Finkelstein | 96 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Finkelstein | 7 |
| JM Jamaica | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Finkelstein | 1 |
| IS Iceland | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Finkelstein | 4 |
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 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Finkelstein is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Farfunkelstein = a Carbuncle or almandite, should bring luck. But from the girls name Finkel too, a Jewish name since the Middle Ages.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
A jeweller or precious stone trader.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
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)
- Louis Finkelsteinb. 1895USAmerican rabbi and scholar (1895–1991)
- Jackie Fieldsb. 1908USnot in their usual nameAmerican boxer (1908–1987)
- Sidney Finkelsteinb. 1909USAmerican writer (1909–1974)
- Dolores Grayb. 1924USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (1924–2002)
- David Finkelsteinb. 1929USAmerican physicist (1929-2016)
- Arthur J. Finkelsteinb. 1945USRepublican Party (GOP) consultant (1945-2017)
- Israel Finkelsteinb. 1949ILIsraeli archaeologist
- William M. Finkelsteinb. 1952USAmerican screenwriter
- Norman Finkelsteinb. 1953USAmerican political scientist (born 1953)
- Amy Finkelsteinb. 1973USAmerican economist
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 25 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.8K | #6,540 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.6K | #7,258 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.2K | #7,559 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Finkelstein mean, and where does it come from?
- invented Jewish name from Yiddish, literally ‘sparkle-stone’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Finkelstein?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈfɪŋkəɫˌstaɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Finkelstein have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 18 thousand people named Finkelstein in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled finkelstein.
- How common is the name Finkelstein?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,591 people named Finkelstein in 2010, about 1 in 72 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Finkelstein?
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/finkelsteinThe 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, “Finkelstein”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.