Kneip
surname · Latin script
Meaning: South German; from Middle High German knip ‘knife’, in particular a cobbler’s knife, and hence probably an occupational nickname for a shoemaker
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈnip/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kneip is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- BEBelgium1 in 293K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 485K
- BRBrazil1 in 566K
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
- 87 (measured from records)
- 1 in 293K (inferred from the name graph)
686 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Belgium
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
South German; from Middle High German knip ‘knife’, in particular a cobbler’s knife, and hence probably an occupational nickname for a shoemaker.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kneip 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 | 686 | 1 in 485K | 686 | Kneip | 53 |
| BR Brazil | 374 | 1 in 566K | 374 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 40 | 1 in 293K | 40 | Kneip | 9 |
| NL Netherlands | 16 | 1 in 1.1M | 16 | Kneip | 4 |
| CH Switzerland | 14 | 1 in 600K | 14 | Kneip | 8 |
686 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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Kneip is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Berufsname aus dem Ledergewerbe; wohl zu einer handwerklichen Tätigkeit im Lederhandwerk. 1055 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname für einen Schuhmacher/Riemenschneider; 1055 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In Norwegian Bokmål, simple past of knipe
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Jakob Kneipb. 1881DEGerman writer (1881-1958)
- Otto Kneipb. 1892DE(1892-1941)
- Rudolf Kneipb. 1899DEGerman author
- Gustav Kneipb. 1905DEGerman composer and conductor (1905–1992)
- Hilde Kneipb. 1912DEGerman actress (1912-1985)
- Richard F. Kneipb. 1933USAmerican politician (1933-1987)
- Heinz Kneipb. 1936PLGerman philologist
- Monika Kneipb. 1952DEGerman table tennis player
- Markus Kneipb. 1956DEGerman diplom-merchant
- Alois Kneipb. 1956DEstatistician
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 20 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 686 | #33,316 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 685 | #35,388 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 638 | #33,690 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 374 | #21,999 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 40 | #30,535 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 16 | #54,309 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 14 | #47,506 |
| 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
- 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 Kneip mean, and where does it come from?
- South German; from Middle High German knip ‘knife’, in particular a cobbler’s knife, and hence probably an occupational nickname for a shoemaker. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kneip?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈnip/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kneip have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 686 people named Kneip, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kneip.
- Where is Kneip most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kneip is densest in Belgium — about 1 in 293 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kneip?
- In the United States, the national register counted 686 people named Kneip in 2010, about 1 in 485 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kneip?
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/kneipThe 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, “Kneip”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.