Merz

surname · Latin script

Meaning: German surname from 'März' (March); likely a personal-characteristic nickname for someone born in March

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ˈmɝz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Merz is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 2.8K(measured from records)
  • USUnited States1 in 77K
  • FIFinland1 in 136K

carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

4,321 people, 2010

Sources
238 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 2.8K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

German surname from 'März' (March); likely a personal-characteristic nickname for someone born in March. Bearer count: 1336; also many local attestations.

Sources 1

  • Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

Where in the world(measured from records)

Merz 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.

Where Merz is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—4,3211 in 77K4.3KMerz238
CH Switzerland#2642,9971 in 2.8K3KMerz78
AR Argentina—831 in 548K83——
PL Poland—651 in 589K34Merz2
ES Spain—441 in 1.1M44Merz17
FI Finland—411 in 136K41—3
BE Belgium—411 in 286K41—7
NO Norway—201 in 273K20—9

4,321 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); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Merz is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Croatian surname21 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Switzerland, Bulgaria

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Mertz, Мерц, Merc, Merč

45 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Merz 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, Übername zu mhd. merz(e) 'Kostbarkeit, Kleinod, Schatz'; evtl. auch Berufsname zu mhd. merzeman 'Kleinhändler'. Beleg: 6848.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, Übername zu mhd. merz(e) 'Kostbarkeit, Kleinod', also zu einer wertvollen/angesehenen Eigenschaft.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, Zu März; Übername nach dem Monat März.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

  • In German, from Mar-/Mark-; also from März

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

  • In hrx, March

    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)

175018001850190019502000Georg Merz, b. 1793Charles Hesterman Merz, b. 1874Otto Merz, b. 1889Carl Merz, b. 1906Mario Merz, b. 1925Hans-Rudolf Merz, b. 1942Friedrich Merz, b. 1955Jarreth Merz, b. 1970Alessia Merz, b. 1974
  • Georg Merzb. 1793DEoptician (1793-1867)
  • Charles Hesterman Merzb. 1874GBBritish electrical engineer (1874–1940)
  • Otto Merzb. 1889DEGerman racecar driver, witness to assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (1889–1933)
  • Carl Merzb. 1906ATAustrian writer (1906–1979)
  • Mario Merzb. 1925ITItalian artist, painter and sculptor (1925–2003)
  • Hans-Rudolf Merzb. 1942CHmember of the Swiss Federal Council
  • Friedrich Merzb. 1955DEGerman politician, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • Jarreth Merzb. 1970CHSwiss-Ghanaian actor and film director
  • Alessia Merzb. 1974ITItalian model and television host
  • C. Noel Bairey MerzUSphysician; director of the Women's Heart Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute

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)

FormalDear Merz,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 31 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Merz
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020104.3K#7,684
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020004.3K#7,204
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020204.1K#7,732
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20243K#259
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—83—
ES SpainINE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal)—44#48,923
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—44#48,409
BE BelgiumFamilienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register)200841#29,939
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—41#27,160
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202634—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—34#64,838
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)202631—

Reference works 6

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 Merz come from?
German surname from 'März' (March); likely a personal-characteristic nickname for someone born in March. Bearer count: 1336; also many local attestations. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
How do you pronounce Merz?
A machine transcription gives /ˈmɝz/ (IPA) for English.
What does the name Merz mean?
Recorded meaning: German surname from 'März' (March); likely a personal-characteristic nickname for someone born in March.
In which country does Merz have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 4.3 thousand people named Merz, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merz.
Where is Merz most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Merz is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 2.8 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Merz?
In the United States, the national register counted 4,321 people named Merz in 2010, about 1 in 77 thousand residents.
How common is Merz compared with other names?
In Switzerland, Merz is the 264th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Merz?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/merz

The 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, “Merz” — the 264th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Merz parses inside a full name →