Knöll

surname · Latin script

Knöll is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Übername zu mhd. knolle 'Klumpen, Erdscholle'; für kleine, korpulente oder plump wirkende Personen.

rarermore common
  • ATAustria≈1 in 4.9K(inferred from the name graph)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 5.5K
  • CACanada≈1 in 32K

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)

≈15,000 people, est.

Sources
374 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 4.9K (inferred from the name graph)

Austria, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Knoll in US United States, DE Germany, GB United Kingdom and 4 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

recorded in German

Übername zu mhd. knolle 'Klumpen, Erdscholle'; für kleine, korpulente oder plump wirkende Personen. Traitename.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Knöll 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.

Where Knöll is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#365≈15,000 est.≈1 in 5.5KlistedKnoll172
US United States—9,6081 in 35K9.6KKnoll374
EG Egypt—≈2,100 est.≈1 in 49K—Knoll6
AT Austria#276≈1,800 est.≈1 in 4.9K—Knoll82
GB United Kingdom—≈1,300 est.≈1 in 50KlistedKnoll67
CA Canada—≈1,200 est.≈1 in 32K1Knoll104
CH Switzerland—2571 in 33K257Knoll29

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; the dfa-band-5 register; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Knöll is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Knoll

  • Portuguese surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, United States, Portugal, Switzerland

    Also written Knoll

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Belgium

    Also written Knoll

  • Russian surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Ukraine, Türkiye

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Кнолль, Knoll, Кнолл

  • Hindi surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Switzerland

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu, Bangla

    Also written Knoll

10 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Knöll is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, Personenname aus persönlichem Merkmal: „knollig/gedrungen, rundlich“; zu Knoll/Knolle „Knolle, Buckel, Klumpen“. 583 Träger.

    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)

18001850190019502000Johann Heinrich Knöll, b. 1806Emil Knöll, b. 1889Hans Knöll, b. 1913Stefanie Knöll, b. 1975Ivana Knöll, b. 1992Tabea Knöll, b. 1993Törles Knöll, b. 1997Luana Knöll, b. 1999

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 3 sources across 2 countries.

Official registers attesting Knöll
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202436#23,866
DE GermanyDeutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 5———

Reference works 1

  • 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 Knöll mean?
Recorded meaning: Übername zu mhd. knolle 'Klumpen, Erdscholle'; für kleine, korpulente oder plump wirkende Personen.
In which country does Knöll have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Knöll in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled knoll.
How common is the name Knöll?
In the United States, the national register counted 9,608 people named Knöll in 2010, about 1 in 35 thousand residents.
How common is Knöll compared with other names?
In Germany, Knöll is the 365th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kn%C3%B6ll

The same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.

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, “Knöll” — the 365th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Knöll parses inside a full name →