Gein
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Humic acid
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ʒɛ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Gein is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 565K(inferred from the name graph)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 1.4M
- CZCzechia1 in 3.6M
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)
- Sources
- 89 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 565K (inferred from the name graph)
≈120 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Humic acid.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gein 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 565K | 15 | Gein | 89 |
| US United States | ≈46 est. | ≈1 in 7.3M | listed | — | 3 |
| CH Switzerland | 6 | 1 in 1.4M | 6 | — | 2 |
| CZ Czechia | 3 | 1 in 3.6M | 3 | — | — |
| UY Uruguay | — | — | 1 | — | — |
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); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017; Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile 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)
Gein is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In enm, alternative form of gayn (“direct, fast, good, helpful”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In non, first/third-person singular past active indicative of gína
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Icelandic, first-person singular past indicative of gína
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Finnish, instructive plural of gee
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In sga, verbal noun of gainithir
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)
- Ed Geinb. 1906USAmerican murderer and human trophy collector (1906–1983)
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 10 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 29 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 23 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 20 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 18 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 18 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 15 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 13 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 11 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 9 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 8 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 7 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 6 | #89,778 |
Reference works 3
- 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 Gein mean, and where does it come from?
- Humic acid. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Gein?
- A machine transcription gives /ʒɛ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Gein have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 120 people named Gein in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gein.
- How common is the name Gein?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 6 people named Gein in 2024, about 1 in 1.4 million residents.
What do you want to know about Gein?
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/geinThe 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, “Gein”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.