Knittel
surname · Latin script
Meaning: German surname from a personal characteristic or occupation; from mhd knüt(t)el ‘club, mace; stonecutter’s hammer’, also a nickname for a rough person
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈnɪtəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Knittel is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- FRFrance
- USUnited States
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
German surname from a personal characteristic or occupation; from mhd knüt(t)el ‘club, mace; stonecutter’s hammer’, also a nickname for a rough person. Bearer count: 1533.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Knittel is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from a dialect variant of Kniittel ‘club’, ‘cudgel’, hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of these or possibly a nickname for a crude, loutish individual.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Berufs- oder Übername zu mhd. bliuwel 'Holz zum Klopfen; Stampfmühle'; entweder Stampfmüller oder Beiname für plumpe Menschen. Bärer: 1533.
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 Knittelb. 1891CHSwiss writer (1891-1970)
- Johannes Knittelb. 1910DEGerman actor (1910–1989)
- Gustav Knittelb. 1914DESS officer (1914–1976)
- Robert Knittelb. 1919GBpublisher
- Wilhelm Knittelb. 1935DEGerman jurist and politician
- Krzysztof Knittelb. 1947PLPolish composer
- Reinhard Knittelb. 1960ATAustrian priest
- Cyril Knittelb. 1974FRFrench screenwriter
- Bastian Knittelb. 1983DEGerman tennis player
- Eric Knittelb. 1983DEGerman rower
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 22 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.3K | #20,985 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.3K | #21,322 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.2K | #20,543 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 104 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 104 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 101 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 99 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 94 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 89 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 89 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 84 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 80 | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- Where does the name Knittel come from?
- German surname from a personal characteristic or occupation; from mhd knüt(t)el ‘club, mace; stonecutter’s hammer’, also a nickname for a rough person. Bearer count: 1533. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- How do you pronounce Knittel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈnɪtəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Knittel mean?
- Recorded meaning: German surname from a personal characteristic or occupation; from mhd knüt(t)el ‘club, mace; stonecutter’s hammer’, also a nickname for a rough person.
- In which country does Knittel have the most bearers?
- Knittel is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Knittel?
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/knittelThe 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, “Knittel”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.