Merks
surname · Latin script
Meaning: genitive singular of Merk
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 7 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/mɛʁks/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Merks is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country.
- NLNetherlands1 in 18K(measured from records)
- BEBelgium1 in 391K
- PLPoland1 in 798K
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 Merks 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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 43 (measured from records)
- 1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)
976 people, 2007
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Меркс in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan.
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)genitive singular of Merk
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Merks 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | 976 | 1 in 18K | 976 | — | 2 |
| PL Poland | 48 | 1 in 798K | 26 | — | — |
| BE Belgium | 30 | 1 in 391K | 30 | — | — |
| RU Russia | ≈25 est. | ≈1 in 5.7M | — | Меркс | 43 |
| CH Switzerland | 8as Merx | 1 in 1.1M | 8 | — | — |
| KZ Kazakhstan | ≈4 est. | ≈1 in 4.5M | — | Меркс | 6 |
976 people counted by CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007), 2007. 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: CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Hans-Joachim Merksb. 1917DERecipient of the Knight's Cross (1917-1961)
- Karl-Wilhelm Merksb. 1939DEGerman theologian
- Piotr MerksPLPolish pharmaceutical scientist
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)11 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 976 | #1,765 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 30 | #37,118 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 26 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 26 | #76,614 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 22 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 22 | #85,099 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 3 | #154,370 |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Merks mean, and where does it come from?
- genitive singular of Merk Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Merks?
- A machine transcription gives /mɛʁks/ (IPA) for German.
- In which country does Merks have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 976 people named Merks, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Merks most common?
- Merks is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 18 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Merks?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 976 people named Merks in 2007, about 1 in 18 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Merks?
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/merksThe 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, “Merks”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.