Ganster

surname · Latin script

Meaning: 1. nickname for a vivacious or fiery man, from Middle High German ganster ‘spark’

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 836K(measured from records)
  • ATAustria≈1 in 18K
  • DEGermany≈1 in 117K

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)

≈690 people, est.

Sources
164 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)

Austria, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Derivation of Ganster: each step is the form the one above it came from.
Ganster
  1. Middle High Germanganster(measured from records)
  2. South Germanganster(measured from records)

1. nickname for a vivacious or fiery man, from Middle High German ganster ‘spark’. 2. nickname or occupational name from South German ganster ‘gander’. Compare Ganter.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ganster 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 Ganster is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany≈690 est.≈1 in 117K—Ganster61
AT Austria≈500 est.≈1 in 18K—Ganster42
US United States3981 in 836K398Ganster164
FR France≈220 est.≈1 in 311K30——
GB United Kingdom≈140 est.≈1 in 456K—Ganster11
BE Belgium≈27 est.≈1 in 440K—Ganster4

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; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

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

  • Spanish surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Colombia, Mexico, Dominican Republic

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Gánster, Gänstër, Gäństêr, Gànstèr, Gánstèr

  • Russian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Ганстер

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Egypt

    Also written Gânstër

29 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)

Ganster 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 German, from lnd. gante 'spark'; also OAustr. 'gänserich'

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

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)

1960198020002020Fritz Ganster, b. 1960Carole Ganster, b. 1971Eva Ganster, b. 1978Lena Ganster, b. 1992Andrin Ganster, b. 2007

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)

FormalDear Ganster,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 11 sources across 5 countries.

Official registers attesting Ganster
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010398#52,169
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000387#50,686
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020382#57,536
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)194146—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)197141—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196133—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199130—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)193130—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)192128—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195120—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198119—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)191117—

Reference works 3

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Ganster come from?
1. nickname for a vivacious or fiery man, from Middle High German ganster ‘spark’. 2. nickname or occupational name from South German ganster ‘gander’. Compare Ganter. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
How do you pronounce Ganster?
A machine transcription gives /ˈɡænstɝ/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Ganster mean?
Recorded meaning: 1. nickname for a vivacious or fiery man, from Middle High German ganster ‘spark’.
In which country does Ganster have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 686 people named Ganster in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ganster.
How common is the name Ganster?
In the United States, the national register counted 398 people named Ganster in 2010, about 1 in 836 thousand residents.

What do you want to know about Ganster?

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

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, “Ganster”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ganster parses inside a full name →