Müller

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from occupational name Müller; here contrasted with dialectal Miller

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 159(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 176
  • CNChina≈1 in 266as Miller

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. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈5,200,000 named Miller, est.

#50 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
651 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 159 (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

MillerLatin(measured from records)
מילרHebrew(measured from records)
ΜυλλερGreek(measured from records)
মিলারBengali(measured from records)
뮐러Hangul(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Miller in US United States, GB United Kingdom, NZ New Zealand 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

Sources 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.

Where Müller is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈5,200,000 est.≈1 in 266—Miller52
US United States#61,161,437as Miller1 in 2861.2MMiller651
DE Germany#1≈460,000 est.≈1 in 176listedMüller270
GB United Kingdom#10≈190,000 est.≈1 in 33921Miller360
EG Egypt#270≈110,000 est.≈1 in 909—Miller47
CH Switzerland#152,8891 in 15953KMüller130
NZ New Zealand#8≈15,000 est.≈1 in 332—Miller174

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); 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)

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

  • a separate name6 spellings in the group

    Also written Mŭller, Mûller, Muller, Műller, Mūller

  • English surname64 spellings in the group

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

    Languages: English, Thai, Dutch

    Also written Muller, Miller, Mueller, มิลเลอร์, มึลเลอร์

  • Croatian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia

    Languages: Croatian, Czech, Polish

    Also written Muller

  • French surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Switzerland

    Also written Muller, Mûller, Mūlļeř, Műller, Mùller

60 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)

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)

175018001850190019502000Wilhelm Müller, b. 1794Friedrich Max Müller, b. 1823Hermann Müller, b. 1876Karl Alexander Müller, b. 1927Heiner Müller, b. 1929Gerd Müller, b. 1945Herta Müller, b. 1953Michael Müller, b. 1964Patrick Müller, b. 1976Thomas Müller, b. 1989

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)

FormalSehr geehrter Herr Müller,Dear Mr Müller, (English)
InformalHallo Müller,Hi Müller, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 28 sources across 14 countries.

Official registers attesting Müller
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202453K#1
DE GermanyDeutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 1———

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 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.
How do you pronounce Müller?
A machine transcription gives /mʏlɐ/ (IPA) for German.
In which country does Müller have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 5.2 million people named Miller in China, 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 China holds more of our records for it.
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 Germany, Müller is the most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Müller?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/m%C3%BCller

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

See how Müller parses inside a full name →