Häfner
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Berufsname zu mhd. havenære ‘Töpfer’
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 3 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
Häfner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Belize it is the 29th most common surname.
- SISlovenia1 in 2.2K(measured from records)
- ATAustria≈1 in 2.7K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 4.1K
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 Häfner 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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 334 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈10,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Slovenia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Hafner in US United States, DE Germany, CH Switzerland and 3 more.
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)Berufsname zu mhd. havenære ‘Töpfer’. Typ zeigt Tonvokal-Variation Hafner/Häfner/Hefner; 2920 Träger.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Häfner 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #418 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 8.3K | listed | Hafner | 151 |
| US United States | — | 5,187 | 1 in 64K | 5.2K | Hafner | 334 |
| AT Austria | #191 | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Hafner | 91 |
| CH Switzerland | #278 | 2,035 | 1 in 4.1K | 2K | Hafner | 73 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 969 | 1 in 2.2K | 969 | Hafner | 12 |
| BZ Belize | #29 | ≈49 est. | ≈1 in 8.5K | — | Hafner | 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the dfa-band-1 register; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank). 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)Häfner 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, Berufsname ‘Topfmacher/Potter’; Karte zeigt a/ä/e-Vokalvariation. 2920 Belege/Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu Haf(f)ner 'Töpfer'; ä- und einfacher f-Schreibung, 2920 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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)- Georg Häfnerb. 1900DEGerman priest and martyr (1900–1942)
- Willi Häfnerb. 1903DEGerman politician (1903–1963)
- August Häfnerb. 1912CHofficer SS (1912-1999)
- Thomas Häfnerb. 1928DEpainter (1928–1985)
- Hans-Peter Häfnerb. 1938DEGerman politician
- Reinhard Häfnerb. 1952DEGerman association football player and manager (1952–2016)
- Gerald Häfnerb. 1956DEGerman politician
- Michael Häfnerb. 1959DEGerman actor (1959–2005)
- Kai Häfnerb. 1989DEGerman handball player
- Bernhard Häfneractor and stuntman
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)7 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 107 | #10,464 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1 | — | — | — |
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 Häfner mean?
- Recorded meaning: Berufsname zu mhd. havenære ‘Töpfer’.
- In which country does Häfner have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 10 thousand people named Häfner in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hafner.
- Where is Häfner most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Häfner is densest in Slovenia — about 1 in 2.2 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Häfner?
- In the United States, the national register counted 5,187 people named Häfner in 2010, about 1 in 64 thousand residents.
- How common is Häfner compared with other names?
- In Germany, Häfner is the 418th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Häfner?
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/h%C3%A4fnerThe 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, “Häfner” — the 418th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.