Knauf
surname · Latin script
Meaning: nickname for a short, chubby man, from Middle High German know/‘knob’, ‘button’, ‘pommel’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Knauf is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- BEBelgium1 in 130K(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 186K
- NLNetherlands1 in 211K
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
- 92 (measured from records)
- 1 in 130K (inferred from the name graph)
1,366 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Belgium
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
nickname for a short, chubby man, from Middle High German know/‘knob’, ‘button’, ‘pommel’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Knauf 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 | 1,366 | 1 in 244K | 1.4K | Knauf | 29 |
| BE Belgium | 90 | 1 in 130K | 90 | Knauf | 9 |
| NL Netherlands | 82 | 1 in 211K | 82 | — | 2 |
| BR Brazil | 60 | 1 in 3.5M | 60 | — | — |
| FI Finland | 30 | 1 in 186K | 30 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | 20 | 1 in 293K | 20 | — | — |
1,366 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; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Knauf 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, knob, doorknob, stud
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Übername nach persönlichem Merkmal: 'Knauf' = Knubbel/Knauf; wohl für eine hervorstehende oder gedrungene Person. Belegt als Typ Knauf.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, zu mhd. knouf 'Knauf, Knoten'; Übername für rundliche Menschen. Die Karte zeigt f/ff-Variation. Belegzahlen: Knauf 1672, Knauff 368.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Übername zu mhd. knouf/mnd. knōp 'Knoten, Knauf, Knopf'. Beruf/Traitename: körperliches Merkmal bzw. charakterlicher Spitzname.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Personenübername für kleine, korpulente oder grobe Menschen; zu mhd. knouf 'Knoten, Knauf'. Bearer count: 1672+368.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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)
- John Knaufb. 1868USAmerican politician (1868-1952)
- Carl Knaufb. 1893DEGerman painter (1893-1944)
- Erich Knaufb. 1895DEGerman journalist, author und songwriter (1895–1944)
- Nikolaus Knaufb. 1936DEGerman entrepreneur
- Daniel Knaufb. 1958USwriter
- Horst Knaufb. 1960DEGerman association football player
- Andreas Knaufb. 1970DEGerman badminton player
- Ann-Marie Knaufb. 1992DEGerman volleyball player
- Cory Knaufactor
- Claude Knaufresearcher
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 20 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.4K | #19,716 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.4K | #18,645 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.3K | #20,291 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 90 | #16,901 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 82 | #22,054 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 60 | #92,187 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 30 | #36,233 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 20 | #23,601 |
| 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 Knauf mean, and where does it come from?
- nickname for a short, chubby man, from Middle High German know/‘knob’, ‘button’, ‘pommel’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What are other forms of the name Knauf?
- In the etymology graph, Knopf and Knoop are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Knauf have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.4 thousand people named Knauf, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled knauf.
- Where is Knauf most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Knauf is densest in Belgium — about 1 in 130 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Knauf?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,366 people named Knauf in 2010, about 1 in 244 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Knauf?
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/knaufThe 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, “Knauf”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.