Hornstein
surname · Latin script
Meaning: ornamental compound of German Horn ‘horn’ + Stein ‘stone’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈhɔɹnˌstaɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hornstein is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Romania than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 102K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 371K
- ILIsrael1 in 28Kas הורנשטיין
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Hornstein itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Romania (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 236 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 81K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,000 named הורנשטיין, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled הורנשטיין in IL Israel, RO Romania, LB Lebanon.
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)
ornamental compound of German Horn ‘horn’ + Stein ‘stone’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hornstein 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RO Romania | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | הורנשטיין | 2 |
| US United States | 896 | 1 in 371K | 993 | Hornstein | 236 |
| DE Germany | ≈790 est. | ≈1 in 102K | — | Hornstein | 72 |
| GH Ghana | ≈360 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Hornstein | 2 |
| IL Israel | 308as הורנשטיין | 1 in 28K | 308 | הורנשטיין | 19 |
| LB Lebanon | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | הורנשטיין | 1 |
| AT Austria | ≈96 est. | ≈1 in 92K | — | Hornstein | 15 |
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 2020; CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"). 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)
Hornstein 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.
In German, habitational name from places so named near Sigmaringen and in Bavaria.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, chert
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)
- Carl Hornsteinb. 1824CZCzech astronomer (1824-1882)
- Charlotte von Hornstein zu Hohenstoffelnb. 1861DEGerman painter; 2nd wife of Franz von Lenbach
- Georg Hornsteinb. 1900DEGerman resistance fighter (1900–1942)
- Michal Hornsteinb. 1920CACanadian businessman and art collector (1920-2016)
- Walter Hornsteinb. 1929DEGerman non-fiction writer and university teacher (1929-2012)
- Norbert Hornsteinb. 1950USAmerican linguist
- Christel Hornsteinb. 1954DEGerman journalist
- Frank Hornsteinb. 1959USAmerican politician
- Gail HornsteinUSAmerican psychologist
- Andreas HornsteinUSeconomist (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)
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 17 sources across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 993 | #25,954 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 896 | #27,042 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 874 | #26,292 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
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 Hornstein mean, and where does it come from?
- ornamental compound of German Horn ‘horn’ + Stein ‘stone’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Hornstein?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhɔɹnˌstaɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Hornstein have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.0 thousand people named הורנשטיין in Romania, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Hornstein?
- In the United States, the national register counted 896 people named Hornstein in 2010, about 1 in 371 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Hornstein?
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/hornsteinThe 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, “Hornstein”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.