Kleiner

surname · Latin script

Meaning: nickname from an inflected form of Klein ‘small’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ˈkɫaɪnɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Kleiner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 16K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 130K
  • ILIsrael1 in 11Kas קליינר

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 Kleiner 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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈21,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
269 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 10K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

KleinerLatin(measured from records)
קליינרHebrew(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled קליינר in IL Israel, LV Latvia.

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)

nickname from an inflected form of Klein ‘small’.

Sources 1

  • Dictionary of American Family Names

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kleiner 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.

Where Kleiner is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈21,000 est.≈1 in 68K—Kleiner3
DE Germany—≈5,100 est.≈1 in 16K—Kleiner145
US United States—2,5661 in 130K2.6KKleiner269
CH Switzerland—8401 in 10K840Kleiner51
IL Israel#938810as קליינר1 in 11K810קליינר40
AT Austria—≈370 est.≈1 in 24K—Kleiner38
LV Latvia—≈85 est.≈1 in 22K—קליינר2

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; CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Kleiner is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Brazil, Paraguay

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Klëïnër, Klêïńėr

  • Russian surname21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Ukraine, Poland

    Languages: Russian, English, Ukrainian

    Also written Клейнер, Kleyner, Кляйнер, Клеинер, Klejner

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Switzerland, Belgium

    Also written Kleĭner

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Kleĭner

  • Croatian surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States

    Also written Клеинер

34 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Kleiner 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.

  • In German, comparative degree of klein

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Zu klein 'small'; morphologische/orthographische Varianten mit -er/-ert/-hard-Typ, teils als Kleinheits- oder Übernamenbildung. Demonstriert regionale Schreib- und Suffixvariation.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Familienname mit t-Antritt/-er; Typ zu Klein(er), 2299 Träger. Morphologisches Muster: Erweiterung mit -t bzw. sekundär zu -ert.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Übername zu klein; teils stark flektierte Form oder patronymische Bildung auf -er. Bearer count: 2299.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

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)

18001850190019502000Alfred Kleiner, b. 1849Israel Kleiner, b. 1885Juliusz Kleiner, b. 1886Harry Kleiner, b. 1916Dick Kleiner, b. 1921Eugene Kleiner, b. 1923Sergio Klainer, b. 1939Michael Kleiner, b. 1948Jeremy Kleiner, b. 1976Bruce Kleiner, b. 2000

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)

FormalDear Kleiner,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 34 sources across 20 countries.

Official registers attesting Kleiner
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020102.6K#12,140
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.4K#12,107
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.3K#12,780
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024840#1,430
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

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 Kleiner mean, and where does it come from?
nickname from an inflected form of Klein ‘small’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
How do you pronounce Kleiner?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɫaɪnɝ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Kleiner have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 21 thousand people named Kleiner in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kleiner.
Where is Kleiner most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kleiner is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 10 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Kleiner?
In the United States, the national register counted 2,566 people named Kleiner in 2010, about 1 in 130 thousand residents.
How common is Kleiner compared with other names?
In Israel, Kleiner is the 938th most common surname of 325,634 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kleiner?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kleiner

The 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, “Kleiner” — the 938th most common surname in Israel. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kleiner parses inside a full name →