Klingen
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in German: Toponymic surname from mhd. klinge '(Sturz)bach; Schlucht' or related toponyms; bearer count 499
Klingen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 94K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States≈1 in 2.6M
- NONorway1 in 16K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 94 (measured from records)
- 1 in 16K (inferred from the name graph)
≈860 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Norway
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname from mhd. klinge '(Sturz)bach; Schlucht' or related toponyms; bearer count 499.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Klingen is read(measured from records)
Klingen is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- German46%
Toponymic surname from mhd. klinge '(Sturz)bach; Schlucht' or related toponyms; bearer count 499.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymic surname from a place, dwelling, or landscape feature with kling-; bearer count 499.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
to sound
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
to ring; to clink
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
from Klinge 'gurgling brook, ravine'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
- English39%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Klingen in English.
- Norwegian5.6%
definite singular of klinge
as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Bokmålkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Klingen 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 | ≈860 est. | ≈1 in 94K | — | Klingen | 67 |
| NO Norway | 348 | 1 in 16K | 348 | Klingen | 12 |
| US United States | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 2.6M | listed | Klingen | 94 |
| IN India | ≈59 est. | ≈1 in 23M | — | Klingen | 1 |
| PL Poland | ≈52 est. | ≈1 in 739K | — | Klingen | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | 43 | 1 in 402K | 43 | Klingen | 11 |
| FI Finland | ≈22 est. | ≈1 in 252K | — | Klingen | 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: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Richard Klingenb. 1873DEGerman painter
- Mary Klingenb. 1924NOchess player
- Helmut Klingenb. 1927DEGerman mathematician (1927–2017)
- Jos Klingenb. 1947NLDutch association football player
- Stephan Klingenb. 1958DEart historian
- Olav Klingenb. 1959NONorwegian comedian
- Mari Klingenb. 1981NONorwegian singer
- Emelie Klingenb. 2005DEGerman association football player
- Ingeborg KlingenNONorwegian acarologist
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 9 sources across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 348 | #4,286 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 43 | #34,042 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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 Klingen mean, and where does it come from?
- Toponymic surname from mhd. klinge '(Sturz)bach; Schlucht' or related toponyms; bearer count 499. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- What are other forms of the name Klingen?
- In the etymology graph, Klinker is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Klingen have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 856 people named Klingen in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled klingen.
- Where is Klingen most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Klingen is densest in Norway — about 1 in 16 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Klingen?
- In Norway, the national register counted 348 people named Klingen, about 1 in 16 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Klingen?
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/klingenThe 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, “Klingen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.