Kemper
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname: from a place/field name with Kamp ‘enclosed field, plot’; bearers: 4521
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkɛmpɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kemper is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 7K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 32K
- SISlovenia1 in 66K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 17 (measured from records)
- 1 in 7.0K (inferred from the name graph)
10,518 people, 2010
Reference-verified
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname: from a place/field name with Kamp ‘enclosed field, plot’; bearers: 4521.
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)
Kemper 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 10,518 | 1 in 32K | 11K | Kemper | 17 |
| NL Netherlands | 2,480 | 1 in 7K | 2.5K | Kemper | 6 |
| BR Brazil | 1,080 | 1 in 196K | 1.1K | — | — |
| AR Argentina | 110 | 1 in 413K | 110 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 70 | 1 in 120K | 70 | — | — |
| FI Finland | 43 | 1 in 130K | 43 | — | — |
| SI Slovenia | 32 | 1 in 66K | 32 | — | — |
10,518 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); 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)
Kemper is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, 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 nd. kamp ‘field, clearing’; bearer count 6071.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling or landscape name; bearer count 7.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, status name denoting a peasant farmer or serf, an agent noun derivative of Kamp
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, 2. Dutch: agent noun derivative of Kemp, i.e. an occupational name for someone who grew, processed, or used hemp.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, habitational name from any of the twelve places named Kempen in the Dutch-German border area.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- James Lawson Kemperb. 1823USConfederate Army general (1823-1895)
- Hermann Kemperb. 1892DEGerman engineer, pioneer in magnetic levitation
- Charles Kemperb. 1900USAmerican actor (1900-1950)
- Victor J. Kemperb. 1927USAmerican cinematographer (1927–2023)
- Dieter Kemperb. 1937DEGerman cyclist (1937-2018)
- David Kemperb. 1947USAmerican rock drummer
- Ed Kemperb. 1948USAmerican serial killer (born 1948)
- Steven Kemperb. 1950USAmerican film editor
- Ellie Kemperb. 1980USAmerican actress
- Boy Kemperb. 1999NLassociation 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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 37 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 11K | #3,401 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 10K | #3,182 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 9.8K | #3,541 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 2.5K | #460 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.1K | #8,643 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 110 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 70 | #14,513 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 43 | #25,968 |
| SI Slovenia | stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank) | — | 32 | #10,294 |
| 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 Kemper mean, and where does it come from?
- Toponymic surname: from a place/field name with Kamp ‘enclosed field, plot’; bearers: 4521. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Kemper?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɛmpɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kemper have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Kemper, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kemper.
- Where is Kemper most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kemper is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 7.0 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kemper?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,518 people named Kemper in 2010, about 1 in 32 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kemper?
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/kemperThe 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, “Kemper”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.