Meister
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A person of great skill or authority in a particular field
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/maɪ̯stər/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Meister is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 38K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 42K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 2.3K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 380 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈69,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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 mhd. meister, < lat. magister; denotes a master/teacher/officer. Plate shows e/ei variation; bearer count 6165.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 25 languages in the etymology graph.
How Meister is read(measured from records)
Meister 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.
- English59%
A person of great skill or authority in a particular field
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German23%
From mhd. meister, < lat. magister; denotes a master/teacher/officer. Plate shows e/ei variation; bearer count 6165.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
from Latin magister 'master; teacher; artisan'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Monophthong-diphthong variation e/ei; plate shows Meister/Mester.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
master
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
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)
Meister 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 | — | ≈69,000 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Meister | 5 |
| US United States | — | 7,885 | 1 in 42K | 7.9K | Meister | 380 |
| CH Switzerland | #721 | 3,697 | 1 in 2.3K | 3.7K | Meister | 54 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 170K | — | Meister | 11 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,210 | 1 in 175K | 1.2K | — | 4 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Meister | 105 |
| TN Tunisia | — | ≈440 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Meister | 3 |
| FI Finland | — | 134 | 1 in 42K | 134 | — | 4 |
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); 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Meister is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
status name for someone who was master of his craft, from Middle High German meister ‘master’ (from Latin magister). The surname Meister is established throughout central Europe; in Poland it is also spelled Majster. As an Ashkenazic Jewish surname it denoted a rabbi as a leading figure in a Jewish community.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Joseph Meisterb. 1876FRFirst person inocculated for rabies (1876-1940)
- Rudolf Meisterb. 1897DEGerman General and Knight's Cross recipients (1897–1958)
- Ernst Meisterb. 1911DEGerman writer, poet, and philosopher (1911–1979)
- Al Lewisb. 1923USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor, radio personality, politician (1923–2006)
- Tobias Meisterb. 1957DEGerman actor and voice actor
- Steve Meisterb. 1958USAmerican tennis player
- Michael Meisterb. 1961DEGerman politician
- Cornelius Meisterb. 1980DEGerman conductor
- Sophie Meisterb. 1981DEGerman actress
- Linni Meisterb. 1985NONorwegian model and singer
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)
Attested in 32 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.9K | #4,496 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 7.4K | #4,419 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 7.2K | #4,740 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 3.7K | #178 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.2K | #7,780 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 134 | #10,198 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register) | — | 22 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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)
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 Meister come from?
- From mhd. meister, < lat. magister; denotes a master/teacher/officer. Plate shows e/ei variation; bearer count 6165. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus.
- How do you pronounce Meister?
- A machine transcription gives /maɪ̯stər/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Meister mean?
- In English, A person of great skill or authority in a particular field
- In which country does Meister have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 69 thousand people named Meister in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled meister.
- Where is Meister most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Meister is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 2.3 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Meister?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,885 people named Meister in 2010, about 1 in 42 thousand residents.
- How common is Meister compared with other names?
- In Switzerland, Meister is the 721st most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Meister?
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/meisterThe 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, “Meister” — the 721st most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.