Korn

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from Korn 'grain'; also occupational and place-name forms

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ˈkɔɹn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Korn is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 61K(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 416K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 71K

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)

5,442 people, 2010

Sources
194 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 61K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

from Korn 'grain'; also occupational and place-name forms

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Korn 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 Korn is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—5,4421 in 61K5.4KKorn194
PL Poland—3751 in 102K197Korn2
DE Germany#651≈190 est.≈1 in 416KlistedKorn162
BR Brazil—1841 in 1.2M184——
NL Netherlands—1701 in 102K170Korn19
CH Switzerland—1191 in 71K119Korn23
SE Sweden—961 in 106K96—14

5,442 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: the dfa-band-5 register; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)

Korn is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Thai surname41 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Thailand, United States, Laos, Switzerland

    Languages: Thai, Lao

    Also written คอร์น, Corn, Kron, คอรีน, กรอน

  • Russian surname13 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Poland

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish

    Also written Корн, Corn, Корнь

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Körn, Ḳorn

  • Greek surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States

    Also written Corn, Κορν

45 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)

Korn 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, Occupational surname: from grain/corn (Korn), likely for a grain seller or grower; bearer count 4450.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, from Middle High German kom ‘grain’, a metonymic occupational name for a factor or dealer in grain or a nickname for a peasant.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, from German Korn (Yiddish kom) ‘grain’, a metonymic occupational name as in 1, or an ornamental name.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, from a short form of the Czech personal name Kornel, a vernacular form of Cornelius.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, from a short form of the personal name Comelis or Cornelius.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

1850190019502000Arthur Korn, b. 1870Arthur Korn, b. 1891Rachel Korn, b. 1898David Korn, b. 1943Eugene Korn, b. 1947Jiří Korn, b. 1949Dieter Korn, b. 1958Alison Korn, b. 1970Felicitas Korn, b. 1974Oliver Korn, b. 1984

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)

FormalDear Korn,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 36 sources across 21 countries.

Official registers attesting Korn
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020105.4K#6,278
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020005.3K#5,947
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.9K#6,659
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026197—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—197#16,668
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—184#39,321
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026178—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—178#18,017
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007170#12,184
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)2024119#9,652
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—96#7,451
DE GermanyDeutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 5———

Reference works 7

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 Korn mean, and where does it come from?
from Korn 'grain'; also occupational and place-name forms Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Korn?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɔɹn/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Korn have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 5.4 thousand people named Korn, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled korn.
Where is Korn most common?
Korn is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 61 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Korn?
In the United States, the national register counted 5,442 people named Korn in 2010, about 1 in 61 thousand residents.
How common is Korn compared with other names?
In Germany, Korn is the 651st most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Korn?

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

The 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, “Korn” — the 651st most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Korn parses inside a full name →