Kamm
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from mhd. kam(p) 'tool; mountain ridge'; also dialect Kamp
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kamm is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 23K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 151K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 9.5K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 274 (measured from records)
- 1 in 9.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from mhd. kam(p) 'tool; mountain ridge'; also dialect Kamp
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kamm 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈5,000 est. | ≈1 in 277K | — | Kamm | 2 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 23K | — | Kamm | 117 |
| US United States | — | 2,202 | 1 in 151K | 2.2K | Kamm | 274 |
| CH Switzerland | #960 | 887 | 1 in 9.5K | 887 | Kamm | 43 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈590 est. | ≈1 in 178K | — | Kamm | 4 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈63 est. | ≈1 in 141K | — | Kamm | 16 |
| FI Finland | — | 41 | 1 in 136K | 41 | — | 5 |
| BZ Belize | — | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | Kamm | 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Kamm is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from Middle High German kamb(e), kam(me), German /(amm, Yiddish kam ‘comb’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a comb maker or more probably a wool comber or fuller. Kamm is also used to mean the crest of a mountain range, but it seems unlikely that the name is topographic.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, comb
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kw, bent, crooked
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Breton, courbe, tordu
as a wordDeshayes, Dictionnaire étymologique du breton (2003)
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)
- Wunibald Kammb. 1893DEautomobile designer, engineer, aerodynamicist (1893–1966)
- Willie Kammb. 1900USAmerican baseball player
- Henry Kammb. 1925USGerman-American journalist (1925-2023)
- Antony Kammb. 1931GBBritish publisher, author, historian and cricketer (1931–2011)
- William Kammb. 1950DEAustralian child abuser
- Oliver Kammb. 1963GBBritish writer and journalist
- Kris Kammb. 1964USAmerican actor
- Michael Kammb. 1978DEmusical artist
- Anat Kamb. 1987ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli whistleblower
- Frances KammUSAmerican philosopher
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 25 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.2K | #13,741 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.2K | #13,296 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.2K | #13,005 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 887 | #1,354 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 41 | #27,026 |
| 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 Kamm mean, and where does it come from?
- from mhd. kam(p) 'tool; mountain ridge'; also dialect Kamp Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- In which country does Kamm have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.0 thousand people named Kamm in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kamm.
- Where is Kamm most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kamm is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 9.5 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kamm?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,202 people named Kamm in 2010, about 1 in 151 thousand residents.
- How common is Kamm compared with other names?
- In Switzerland, Kamm is the 960th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kamm?
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/kammThe 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, “Kamm” — the 960th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.