Hilmer
given name · Latin script
Meaning: contracted form of Hillmeier, which is a topographic name derived from Middle High German hUlwe ‘water-hole’ -l- meier ‘(tenant) farmer’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ilmeɾ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hilmer is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Peru than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 1.7M(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 8.7K
- PEPeru≈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.
- Peru (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 150 (measured from records)
- 1 in 8.7K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,500 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Hilmér in SE Sweden.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
contracted form of Hillmeier, which is a topographic name derived from Middle High German hUlwe ‘water-hole’ -l- meier ‘(tenant) farmer’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hilmer 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PE Peru | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 13K | — | Hilmer | 16 |
| ZM Zambia | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Hilmer | 1 |
| SE Sweden | 1,167 | 1 in 8.7K | 1.2K | Hilmér | 11 |
| DE Germany | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 323K | — | Hilmer | 105 |
| US United States | 201 | 1 in 1.7M | 648 | Hilmer | 150 |
| DK Denmark | 48 | 1 in 122K | 62 | — | — |
| FI Finland | 31 | 1 in 180K | 202 | — | 2 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Hilmer 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.
from the Germanic personal name Hildemar, formed with hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ + mari ‘famous’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In Swedish, Hilmer är ett tyskt namn, äldre Hildemar, sammansatt av fornhögtyskt hilt( j)a ’strid’ och māri ’berömd, ansedd’. En sidoform är Hilmar, som idag kanske snarare ses som en maskulin form av det vanligare → Hilma.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
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)
- Hilmer Bülowb. 1883DEGerman officer (1883–1966)
- Hilmer Ekdahlb. 1889SESwedish cinematographer (1889–1967)
- Hilmer Wentzb. 1894SESwedish writer and priest
- Justus Lindgrenb. 1896SEnot in their usual nameSwedish politician (1896–1985)
- Hilmer Johanssonb. 1905SESwedish politician
- Hilmer Johansonb. 1905SESwedish journalist and politician
- Sven Ungerb. 1909SEnot in their usual nameSwedish footballer
- Noel Louis Hilmer Kraussb. 1910American entomologist
- Lennart Ljungb. 1921SEnot in their usual nameSwedish general and supreme commander (1921-1990)
- Herman Sjögrellb. 2001SEnot in their usual nameSwedish association football 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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 34 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 648 | #33,248 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 610 | #38,989 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 496 | #43,511 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 62 | #8,652 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 21 | #24,621 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 10 | #44,447 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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)
- 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
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 Hilmer mean, and where does it come from?
- contracted form of Hillmeier, which is a topographic name derived from Middle High German hUlwe ‘water-hole’ -l- meier ‘(tenant) farmer’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hilmer?
- A machine transcription gives /ilmeɾ/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- Is Hilmer a male or female name?
- Hilmer is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- In which country does Hilmer have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.5 thousand people named Hilmer in Peru, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hilmer.
- Where is Hilmer most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Hilmer is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 8.7 thousand people — even though Peru holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Hilmer?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 1,167 people named Hilmer, about 1 in 8.7 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Hilmer?
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/hilmerThe 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, “Hilmer”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.