Kuhn

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: (i) From the medieval German male personal name Kuno, a pet form of Kunrat ‘Conrad’, probably also influenced by German kuhn ‘brave’; (ii) an invented Jewish name based on German kuhn ‘brave’

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

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

Kuhn is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Germany it is the 37th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 1.9K(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 2K
  • JMJamaica≈1 in 7.4K

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.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈220,000 people, est.

Sources
426 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 1.9K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

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:

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)

(i) From the medieval German male personal name Kuno, a pet form of Kunrat ‘Conrad’, probably also influenced by German kuhn ‘brave’; (ii) an invented Jewish name based on German kuhn ‘brave’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

How Kuhn is read(measured from records)

Kuhn is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English63%

    (i) From the medieval German male personal name Kuno, a pet form of Kunrat ‘Conrad’, probably also influenced by German kuhn ‘brave’; (ii) an invented Jewish name based on German kuhn ‘brave’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • German16%

    Patronymic from Kuono; u-spelling without final -e, often contrasted with Kühn. Bearers: 17232.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

    from the personal name Kuno, a short form of Kunrat (see Konrad). The German word kiihn, meaning ‘bold’, may have influenced the popularity of this short form, but is not necessarily the immediate source of it.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    ornamental name from German kiihn ‘bold’, but in some cases an altered spelling of Cohn or Kohn (see Cohen).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

    a surname transferred from the given name

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Spanish5.2%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Kuhn in Spanish.

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kuhn 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 Kuhn is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈220,000 est.≈1 in 6.3K—Kuhn12
DE Germany#37≈41,000 est.≈1 in 2KlistedKuhn218
US United States#77031,7761 in 10K32KKuhn426
BR Brazil—12,4321 in 17K12K—7
ZA South Africa#905≈5,400 est.≈1 in 11K—Kuhn62
CH Switzerland#574,4811 in 1.9K4.5KKuhn113
IE Ireland#654≈690 est.≈1 in 7.5K—Kuhn18
JM Jamaica#126≈380 est.≈1 in 7.4K—Kuhn1

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-1 register; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); 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)

Kuhn is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Argentina, United States, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Kühn

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Kühn

  • Polish surname10 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Czechia, United States, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Kühn, Kűhn, Kühñ

  • Danish surname7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Norway, Switzerland

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Kühn

  • Swahili surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Kühn

  • Italian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, San Marino, United Kingdom

    Also written Kühn

54 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)

Kuhn 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.

  • Given name, in Baden and Under Rhine 1809.

    as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

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)

16001700180019002000Johann Kuhnau, b. 1660Adalbert Kuhn, b. 1812Fritz Julius Kuhn, b. 1896Richard Kuhn, b. 1900Thomas Kuhn, b. 1922Harold W. Kuhn, b. 1925Mickey Kuhn, b. 1932Jakob Kuhn, b. 1943Fritz Kuhn, b. 1955Judy Kuhn, b. 1958
  • Johann Kuhnaub. 1660DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer, organist and harpsichordist
  • Adalbert Kuhnb. 1812PLGerman philologist and folklorist (1812–1881)
  • Fritz Julius Kuhnb. 1896USAmerican leader of the German American Bund (1896–1951)
  • Richard Kuhnb. 1900DEAustrian-German biochemist (1900-1967)
  • Thomas Kuhnb. 1922USAmerican historian, physicist and philosopher (1922 – 1996)
  • Harold W. Kuhnb. 1925USAmerican mathematician (1925–2014)
  • Mickey Kuhnb. 1932USAmerican actor (1932–2022)
  • Jakob Kuhnb. 1943CHSwiss association football player and manager (1943-2019)
  • Fritz Kuhnb. 1955DEGerman politician
  • Judy Kuhnb. 1958USAmerican actress, singer and activist

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 Kuhn,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 39 sources across 23 countries.

Official registers attesting Kuhn
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201032K#1,102
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202030K#1,129
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200030K#1,053
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—12K#1,142
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20244.5K#130
DE GermanyDeutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 9

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

How do you pronounce Kuhn?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkun/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Kuhn mean, and where does it come from?
(i) From the medieval German male personal name Kuno, a pet form of Kunrat ‘Conrad’, probably also influenced by German kuhn ‘brave’; (ii) an invented Jewish name based on German kuhn ‘brave’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Kuhn have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 220 thousand people named Kuhn in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kuhn.
Where is Kuhn most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kuhn is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 1.9 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Kuhn?
In the United States, the national register counted 31,776 people named Kuhn in 2010, about 1 in 10 thousand residents.
How common is Kuhn compared with other names?
In Germany, Kuhn is the 37th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kuhn?

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

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, “Kuhn” — the 37th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kuhn parses inside a full name →