Meile
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from a short form of any of several Germanic personal names formed with mag- ‘might’ or mag ‘kinsman’ as the first element
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 23 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈmaɪ̯lə/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Meile is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Switzerland than in any other country.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 8.2K(measured from records)
- DKDenmark1 in 128K
- DEGermany≈1 in 240Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). 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.
- Switzerland (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 124 (measured from records)
- 1 in 8.2K (inferred from the name graph)
1,031 people, 2024
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from a short form of any of several Germanic personal names formed with mag- ‘might’ or mag ‘kinsman’ as the first element.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Meile 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | — | 1,031 | 1 in 8.2K | 1K | Meile | 47 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 242K | — | Meile | 40 |
| US United States | — | 260 | 1 in 1.3M | 308 | Meile | 124 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈100 est. | ≈1 in 604K | 1 | Meile | 5 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈68 est. | ≈1 in 552K | — | Meile | 7 |
| DK Denmark | — | 46 | 1 in 128K | 46 | — | 1 |
| LV Latvia | — | ≈7 est. | ≈1 in 265K | 1 | — | 3 |
| BS Bahamas | #457 | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Meile | 1 |
1,031 people counted by BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames), 2024. 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register). 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)Meile 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, mile (unit of distance)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Estonian, allative plural of me (“we”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Irish, analytic present subjunctive of meil
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Lithuanian, instrumental/vocative of Méilė
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, alternative form of mayle
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 Meileb. 1886CHSwiss economist and politician (1886-1973)
- Josephus Meileb. 1891CHSwiss priest (1891-1957)
- Pierre Meileb. 1911FRFrench linguist (1911–1963)
- Eva Meileb. 1936Danish pianist
- Alexander Meileb. 1983DEGerman actor
- Leo Meilebotanist
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)37 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1K | #1,155 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 308 | #68,789 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 281 | #65,862 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 260 | #74,375 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 46 | #11,391 |
| IT Italy | 意大利语姓名译名手册 (Xinhua Italian Name Manual) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Meile mean, and where does it come from?
- from a short form of any of several Germanic personal names formed with mag- ‘might’ or mag ‘kinsman’ as the first element. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Meile?
- In German /ˈmaɪ̯lə/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Meile have the most bearers?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted about 1.0 thousand people named Meile, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled meile.
- Where is Meile most common?
- Meile is densest in Switzerland, where the national register counts about 1 in 8.2 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Meile?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 1,031 people named Meile in 2024, about 1 in 8.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Meile compared with other names?
- In the Bahamas, Meile is the 457th most common surname of 3,175 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Meile?
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/meileThe 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, “Meile” — the 457th most common surname in Bahamas. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.