Mergenthaler
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Ottmar, US inventor
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mɝɡɪnθəɫɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Mergenthaler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 21M(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 598K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 700K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 83 (measured from records)
- 1 in 598K (inferred from the name graph)
556 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Ottmar, US inventor
Sources 1
- Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Mergenthaler 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 | 556 | 1 in 598K | 556 | Mergenthaler | 83 |
| CH Switzerland | 12 | 1 in 700K | 12 | Mergenthaler | 10 |
| ES Spain | 12 | 1 in 4.2M | 12 | — | 1 |
| DE Germany | ≈4 est. | ≈1 in 21M | — | Mergenthaler | 76 |
| AT Austria | — | — | — | Mergenthaler | 7 |
556 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; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos). 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)
- Johann Georg Mergenthalerb. 1820German pedagogue (1820-1893)
- Ottmar Mergenthalerb. 1854USGerman-American precision mechanic and inventor of the Linotype typesetting machine (1854-1899)
- Christian Mergenthalerb. 1884DEGerman politician (1884-1980)
- George Mergenthalerb. 1920USAmerican soldier
- André Mergenthalerb. 1957LULuxembourg composer
- Eric Mergenthalerb. 1963MXMexican sailor
- May Mergenthalerb. 1971USGermanic scholar
- Nicoletta Mergenthalerb. 1986DEGerman volleyball player
- Hannah Mergenthalerb. 1997DEGerman athletics competitor
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 11 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 556 | #39,555 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 548 | #42,600 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 508 | #40,552 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 12 | #53,184 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 12 | #109,635 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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)
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 Mergenthaler mean, and where does it come from?
- Ottmar, US inventor Recorded by Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names.
- How do you pronounce Mergenthaler?
- A machine transcription gives /mɝɡɪnθəɫɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Mergenthaler have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 556 people named Mergenthaler, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled mergenthaler.
- Where is Mergenthaler most common?
- Mergenthaler is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 598 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Mergenthaler?
- In the United States, the national register counted 556 people named Mergenthaler in 2010, about 1 in 598 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Mergenthaler?
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/mergenthalerThe 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, “Mergenthaler”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.