Müller
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from occupational name Müller; here contrasted with dialectal Miller
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 14 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈmʏlɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Müller is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common surname.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 159(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 180
- CZCzechia1 in 2.2K
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 Müller itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #50 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 651 (measured from records)
- 1 in 159 (inferred from the name graph)
1,161,437 named Miller, 2010
of 19M surnames, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Miller in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada and 2 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)from occupational name Müller; here contrasted with dialectal Miller
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Müller 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #6 | 1,161,437as Miller | 1 in 286 | 1.2M | Miller | 651 |
| DE Germany | #1 | ≈460,000 est. | ≈1 in 176 | listed | Müller | 270 |
| GB United Kingdom | #10 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 339 | 21 | Miller | 360 |
| EG Egypt | #270 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 909 | — | Miller | 47 |
| CA Canada | #6 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 342 | 17 | Miller | 336 |
| CH Switzerland | #1 | 52,889 | 1 in 159 | 53K | Müller | 130 |
| NZ New Zealand | #8 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 332 | — | Miller | 174 |
1,161,437 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the dfa-band-1 register; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); 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 recorded senses
(measured from records)Müller 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, German surname of Joh. Müller, Latinized as Regiomontanus.
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, occupation name; here cited as a common surname in towns
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, a common surname originating as an occupation
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Aus lat. molinae/molinarius; Berufsname 'Müller'. Belegt 258708 Träger. Die Karte zeigt die Vokalvarianz ü/ö/i in Müller-Namen; neben Müller auch Möller und Miller.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. mülner/müller 'Müller'; die Karte zeigt die Vokalvarianten ü/u, ö/o, e/i in den Schreibungen.
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)- Wilhelm Müllerb. 1794DEGerman poet (1794-1827)
- Friedrich Max Müllerb. 1823GBGerman-born British philologist, orientalist and indologist (1823–1900)
- Hermann Müllerb. 1876DEGerman politician (1876–1931)
- Karl Alexander Müllerb. 1927CHSwiss physicist (1927–2023)
- Heiner Müllerb. 1929DEGerman writer, poet, and theatre director (1929–1995)
- Gerd Müllerb. 1945DEGerman footballer (1945–2021)
- Herta Müllerb. 1953ROGerman-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist (born 1953)
- Michael Müllerb. 1964DEGerman politician (born 1964)
- Patrick Müllerb. 1976CHSwiss footballer
- Thomas Müllerb. 1989DEGerman association football player
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)28 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 53K | #1 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1 | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Müller mean, and where does it come from?
- from occupational name Müller; here contrasted with dialectal Miller Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What are other forms of the name Müller?
- In the etymology graph, Molinero is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Müller have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.2 million people named Miller, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Müller most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Müller is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 159 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Müller?
- In German /ˈmʏlɐ/ (Wiktionary).
- How common is the name Müller?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 52,889 people named Müller in 2024, about 1 in 159 residents.
- How common is Müller compared with other names?
- In the United States, Müller is the 6th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Müller?
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/m%C3%BCllerThe 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, “Müller” — the 6th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.