Kuhne
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Less common apocopated form of the Kuoni/Kuono patronymic; maps u-spelling without umlaut
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kuhne is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 6.5K(inferred from the name graph)
- BRBrazil1 in 490K
- USUnited States1 in 202Kas Kuehne
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kuhne itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 243 (measured from records)
- 1 in 4.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈12,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Kuehne in US United States, IT Italy, CU Cuba and Kühne in DE Germany.
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)
Less common apocopated form of the Kuoni/Kuono patronymic; maps u-spelling without umlaut. Bearers: 790.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kuhne 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #268 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.5K | listed | Kühne | 125 |
| CH Switzerland | #381 | 1,929 | 1 in 4.4K | 1.9K | Kuhne | 38 |
| US United States | — | 1,647as Kuehne | 1 in 202K | 1.6K | Kuehne | 243 |
| BR Brazil | — | 432 | 1 in 490K | 432 | Kuhne | 38 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 237K | — | Kuehne | 4 |
| CU Cuba | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 58K | — | Kuehne | 1 |
| DK Denmark | — | 97 | 1 in 61K | 97 | — | 4 |
| LR Liberia | — | ≈90 est. | ≈1 in 56K | — | Kuhne | 1 |
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-1 register; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). 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)
Kuhne 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, Vom Adjektiv kühn „mutig, tapfer“; mit Nebentonvokalismus/Apokope bzw. Antritt von -e. 790 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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)
- Louis Kuhneb. 1835DEGerman nutritionist (1835–1901)
- John Elisée Kuhneb. 1862botanical collector (1862 - )
- Marie Ahnighito Pearyb. 1893USnot in their usual nameAmerican writer and lecturer (1893-1978)
- Italo Kuhneb. 1930ITItalian journalist
- Sibylle Kuhneb. 1948DEGerman film actor, stage actor and writer
- Eric Kuhneb. 1951USAmerican-born architect
- Christian Kuhneb. 1968DEscientist
- Andrea Kuhneb. 1993DEGerman judoka
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 26 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 683 | #31,924 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 679 | #33,567 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 642 | #37,317 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 432 | #19,405 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 8 | #72,019 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1 | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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
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 Kuhne come from?
- Less common apocopated form of the Kuoni/Kuono patronymic; maps u-spelling without umlaut. Bearers: 790. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus.
- How do you pronounce Kuhne?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkən/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Kuhne mean?
- Recorded meaning: Less common apocopated form of the Kuoni/Kuono patronymic; maps u-spelling without umlaut.
- In which country does Kuhne have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 12 thousand people named Kuhne in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kühne.
- Where is Kuhne most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kuhne is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 4.4 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kuhne?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 1,929 people named Kuhne in 2024, about 1 in 4.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Kuhne compared with other names?
- In Germany, Kuhne is the 268th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kuhne?
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/kuhneThe 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, “Kuhne” — the 268th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.