Kurz

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from nd. Kort(h) or as short form of Kuhn; also from nhd

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

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

Kurz is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • ATAustria≈1 in 3.3K(inferred from the name graph)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 3.6K
  • USUnited States1 in 86K

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)

≈22,000 people, est.

Sources
247 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.3K (inferred from the name graph)

Austria, est.

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 nd. Kort(h) or as short form of Kuhn; also from nhd. 'Kunst'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kurz 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 Kurz is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#212≈22,000 est.≈1 in 3.6K—Kurz182
US United States—3,8741 in 86K3.9KKurz247
AT Austria#175≈2,700 est.≈1 in 3.3K—Kurz95
CH Switzerland#9391,1501 in 7.3K1.1KKurz59
BR Brazil—1,0801 in 196K1.1K——
PL Poland—6811 in 56K352Kurz2
CZ Czechia—2231 in 48K226—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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017; KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end). 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)

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

  • English surname2 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Kürż

  • Polish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Czechia, United States, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Kürz

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador

    Languages: Spanish, Italian

    Also written Kùrz

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Kürz

  • Croatian surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Bulgaria

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Kurc, Курц, Kurç

42 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)

Kurz 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, Personal characteristic: 'short'; bearer count 26389.

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

  • In German, from a nickname for a short person; 'short'

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In German, short, brief

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

  • In German, Übername zu 'kurz'; im Kontext der Karte als weiterer Fall von t/(t)z-Varianz nach Konsonant erwähnt. Bearer count: 9926.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

  • In German, Personenname aus Körpergröße/Nickname 'klein, kurz'; Formen teils auch bei konkurrierenden Berufs- oder Herkunftsnamen.

    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)

18001850190019502000Heinrich Kurz, b. 1805Hermann Kurz, b. 1813Wilhelm Sulpiz Kurz, b. 1834Isolde Kurz, b. 1853Vilém Kurz, b. 1872Selma Kurz, b. 1874Siegfried Kurz, b. 1930Robert Kurz, b. 1943Marco Kurz, b. 1969Sebastian Kurz, b. 1986

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 Kurz,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 33 sources across 20 countries.

Official registers attesting Kurz
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.9K#8,504
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020003.8K#7,973
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020203.8K#8,346
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20241.1K#1,011
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.1K#8,643
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026352—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—352#9,407
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026329—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—329#9,925
CZ CzechiaKdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end)—226#5,260
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—223#7,560
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

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

Where does the name Kurz come from?
from nd. Kort(h) or as short form of Kuhn; also from nhd. 'Kunst' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
How do you pronounce Kurz?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɝz/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Kurz mean?
Recorded meaning: from nd. Kort(h) or as short form of Kuhn; also from nhd.
In which country does Kurz have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 22 thousand people named Kurz in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kurz.
How common is the name Kurz?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,874 people named Kurz in 2010, about 1 in 86 thousand residents.
How common is Kurz compared with other names?
In Germany, Kurz is the 212th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kurz?

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

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, “Kurz” — the 212th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kurz parses inside a full name →