Knust
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Personal characteristic: from mnd
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈknəst/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Knust is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DKDenmark1 in 267K(measured from records)
- BRBrazil1 in 426K
- USUnited States1 in 499K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 62 (measured from records)
- 1 in 267K (inferred from the name graph)
667 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Personal characteristic: from mnd. knūst 'Knorren, Knolle' ('small, corpulent or rough person'). Bearer count: 993.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Where in the world(measured from records)
Knust 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 | 667 | 1 in 499K | 687 | Knust | 25 |
| BR Brazil | 497 | 1 in 426K | 497 | Knust | 62 |
| DK Denmark | 22 | 1 in 267K | 22 | — | — |
| CL Chile | ≈18 est. | ≈1 in 1M | — | Knust | 24 |
| CH Switzerland | 8 | 1 in 1.1M | 8 | — | 1 |
667 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); 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)
Knust 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'; also 'bread crust'; or Obd. for Knaus
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
from knust ‘knot’, ‘crust (of a loaf)’, hence possibly a nickname for a stocky person or a tough character.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, heel of bread
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Deutscher Familienname aus einem Übernamen für eine kleine, untersetzte Person; wohl zu frühnhd. knūs 'Knorren, Auswuchs' oder mhd. knūʒ 'keck'; 993 Bearer.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Nachname aus persönlichem Merkmal: knubbelig, stämmig oder uneben.
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)
- Friedrich Knustb. 1848DEGerman architect
- Walter Knustb. 1881DEornithologist, teacher and photographer from Germany
- Albrecht Knustb. 1896DEGerman choreographer (1896–1978)
- Theodor Knustb. 1908DEGerman translator
- Jutta Knustb. 1913DEGerman translator
- Elisabeth Knustb. 1951DEGerman researcher
- Bruno Knustb. 1954DEGerman musician
- Peter Knustb. 1960DEswimmer
- Jennifer Knustb. 1966USAmerican Biblical scholar (1966-)
- Juliana Knustb. 1981BRBrazilian actress
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 17 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 687 | #35,309 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 667 | #34,073 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 662 | #32,703 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 497 | #17,206 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 22 | #21,576 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 8 | #72,019 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- 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)
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 Knust come from?
- Personal characteristic: from mnd. knūst 'Knorren, Knolle' ('small, corpulent or rough person'). Bearer count: 993. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- How do you pronounce Knust?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈknəst/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Knust mean?
- Recorded meaning: Personal characteristic: from mnd.
- In which country does Knust have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 667 people named Knust, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled knust.
- Where is Knust most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Knust is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 267 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Knust?
- In the United States, the national register counted 667 people named Knust in 2010, about 1 in 499 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Knust?
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/knustThe 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, “Knust”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.