Matthes
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in German: from a variant of the personal name Matthaus (see Matthew)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Matthes is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 7.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 178K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 118K
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)
- Sources
- 245 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈10,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from a variant of the personal name Matthaus (see Matthew).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
How Matthes is read(measured from records)
Matthes is one spelling over 2 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.
- English47%
Francois Emile, US geologist
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- German42%
from a variant of the personal name Matthaus (see Matthew).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Patronymische Kurzform zu Matthäus/Matthias; belegt die t/th-Varianz und die eingedeutschte Endung -es. 6230 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Kurzform zu Matthäus; Variation mit Dentale/Plosive und Schreibung Matth-/Matthe-; 1652+4421, Matthe(ß/ss) 134+23.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Patronymischer Familienname; lateinische Genitivendung -is/-ae als morphologisches Patronym-Bildungsmuster.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Matthes 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 135K | — | Matthes | 2 |
| DE Germany | #647 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 7.9K | listed | Matthes | 140 |
| US United States | — | 1,870 | 1 in 178K | 1.9K | Matthes | 245 |
| BR Brazil | — | 399 | 1 in 531K | 399 | — | 1 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 214K | — | Matthes | 5 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 131K | — | Matthes | 59 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 71 | 1 in 118K | 71 | Matthes | 22 |
| FI Finland | — | 41 | 1 in 136K | 41 | — | 2 |
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-2 register; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Agneta Matthesb. 1847NLDutch entrepreneur (1847-1909)
- Josef Friedrich Matthesb. 1886DEGerman politician (1886–1943)
- Heinz Matthesb. 1897DEGerman politician (1897-1976)
- Heinrich Matthesb. 1902DEHolocaust perpetrator (1902–1978)
- Kurt Matthesb. 1914DEGerman politician (1914-2012)
- Roland Matthesb. 1950DEGerman swimmer (1950–2019)
- Kornelia Enderb. 1958DEnot in their usual nameEast German swimmer
- Ulrich Matthesb. 1959DEGerman actor
- Ruthie Matthesb. 1965USAmerican cyclist
- Livia Matthesb. 1990DEGerman actress
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 30 sources across 17 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.9K | #15,625 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.8K | #14,764 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.8K | #15,969 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 399 | #20,772 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 71 | #14,356 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 41 | #27,151 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 2 | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
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 Matthes mean, and where does it come from?
- from a variant of the personal name Matthaus (see Matthew). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- In which country does Matthes have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 10 thousand people named Matthes in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled matthes.
- How common is the name Matthes?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,870 people named Matthes in 2010, about 1 in 178 thousand residents.
- How common is Matthes compared with other names?
- In Germany, Matthes is the 647th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Matthes?
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/matthesThe 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, “Matthes” — the 647th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.