Kappeler
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name, likely to 'Kapelle' (chapel); bearers: 170+90, 213, 31+27
/ˈkæpəɫɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kappeler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Switzerland than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 177K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 978K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 4.7K
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.
- Switzerland (measured from records)
- Sources
- 121 (measured from records)
- 1 in 4.7K (inferred from the name graph)
1,785 people, 2024
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name, likely to 'Kapelle' (chapel); bearers: 170+90, 213, 31+27.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kappeler 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | #589 | 1,785 | 1 in 4.7K | 1.8K | Kappeler | 62 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 177K | — | Kappeler | 50 |
| US United States | — | 340 | 1 in 978K | 340 | Kappeler | 121 |
| AR Argentina | — | 96 | 1 in 474K | 96 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈47 est. | ≈1 in 1.4M | — | Kappeler | 10 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 415K | — | Kappeler | 12 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈14 est. | ≈1 in 375K | — | Kappeler | 1 |
1,785 people counted by BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames), 2024. 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); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Kappeler is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Toponymic surname; from a place/settlement or dwelling name. Bearer count: 531.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
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)
- Moritz Anton Kappelerb. 1685CHSwiss naturalist
- Karl Kappelerb. 1816CHSwiss politician (1816-1888)
- Ernst Kappelerb. 1911CHSwiss writer (1911-1987)
- Manfred Kappelerb. 1940DEGerman author
- Andreas Kappelerb. 1943CHSwiss historian
- Beat Kappelerb. 1946CHSwiss social scientist and opinion journalist
- Peter M. Kappelerb. 1959DEGerman university teacher and primatologist
- Beat Kappelerb. 1970CHSwiss saxophonist, music educator
- Vera Kappelerb. 1974CHSwiss pianist
- Kaspar Kappelerb. 1985chess 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 13 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1.8K | #557 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 340 | #59,470 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 334 | #64,360 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 331 | #57,544 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 96 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- 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)
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 Kappeler mean, and where does it come from?
- Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name, likely to 'Kapelle' (chapel); bearers: 170+90, 213, 31+27. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Kappeler?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkæpəɫɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kappeler have the most bearers?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted about 1.8 thousand people named Kappeler, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kappeler.
- Where is Kappeler most common?
- Kappeler is densest in Switzerland, where the national register counts about 1 in 4.7 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Kappeler?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 1,785 people named Kappeler in 2024, about 1 in 4.7 thousand residents.
- How common is Kappeler compared with other names?
- In Switzerland, Kappeler is the 589th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kappeler?
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/kappelerThe 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, “Kappeler” — the 589th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.