Geffen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a genitive-singular -en of pet-forms of French personal names; first attested Peter, Rose Geffen 1332 SRWo
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 7 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈɣɛ.fə(n)/(recorded in a dictionary) Dutch · from Wiktionary
Geffen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Israel than in any other country.
- SESweden1 in 638K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
- DKDenmark1 in 2M
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Geffen itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Israel (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 70 (measured from records)
- 1 in 638K (inferred from the name graph)
2,256 named גפן, 2017
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled גפן in IL Israel, PL Poland and Gefen in US United States.
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
(measured from records)from a genitive-singular -en of pet-forms of French personal names; first attested Peter, Rose Geffen 1332 SRWo
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Geffen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IL Israel | #423 | 2,256as גפן | 1 in 3.8K | 2.3K | גפן | 70 |
| US United States | — | 309 | 1 in 1.1M | 314 | Gefen | 69 |
| PL Poland | — | 45as Gefen | 1 in 851K | 39 | גפן | 2 |
| SE Sweden | — | 16 | 1 in 638K | 16 | — | 1 |
| ES Spain | — | 7 | 1 in 7.1M | 7 | — | 2 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 6as Gefen | 1 in 1.4M | 6 | — | 6 |
2,256 people counted by CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"), 2017. 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: CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)Geffen 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.
ornamental name from Hebrew gefen ‘vine’, a Hebraicization usually of the various Ashkenazic surnames from German Wein.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
from a Germanic personal name formed with geba ‘gift’, for example Gebhardt.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, relationship name from the Middle English personal name Geff, a pet form of Geoffrey (see Jeffrey ), with the characteristically West Midland genitival suffix -en.
as a nameThe Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
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)- Aviva Geffenb. 1922ILmother of Yehonatan Geffen, sister of Moshe Dayan
- Menachem Gueffenb. 1930ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli artist (1930–2016)
- Felicia Kentridgeb. 1930ZAnot in their usual nameSouth African lawyer (1930-2015)
- Amos Geffenb. 1937ILIsraeli Journalist, Editor, Publisher and Translator
- David Geffenb. 1943USAmerican businessman
- Yehonatan Geffenb. 1947ILIsraeli author, poet, songwriter, journalist, and playwright
- Eyal Geffenb. 1950ILIsraeli actor and director
- Shira Geffenb. 1971ILIsraeli film director, screenwriter and actor
- Aviv Geffenb. 1973ILIsraeli musician
- Shai Geffenb. 1982ILbadminton 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)18 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 314 | #60,083 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 309 | #64,388 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 296 | #71,105 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 20 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 20 | #89,208 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 16 | #29,441 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 10 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 10 | #133,109 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 7 | #143,513 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- What does the name Geffen mean, and where does it come from?
- from a genitive-singular -en of pet-forms of French personal names; first attested Peter, Rose Geffen 1332 SRWo Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Geffen?
- In Dutch /ˈɣɛ.fə(n)/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Geffen have the most bearers?
- In Israel, the national register counted about 2.3 thousand people named גפן, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Geffen most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Geffen is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 638 thousand people — even though Israel holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Geffen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 309 people named Geffen in 2010, about 1 in 1.1 million residents.
- How common is Geffen compared with other names?
- In Israel, Geffen is the 423rd most common surname of 325,634 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Geffen?
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/geffenThe 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, “Geffen” — the 423rd most common surname in Israel. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.