Niem
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname: type Niem-
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ɲiəm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Niem is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States≈1 in 290K(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 88K
- PHPhilippines≈1 in 148K
carrying the name, as Mondonomo estimates it from our sources: no national register counts it in these countries. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 85 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 88K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname: type Niem-. In Poland: Niemi(e)tz 3+34, Niemtz 19, Nim(t)z 14+16, Nimtsch 11, Nimsch 1.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Niem 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 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 290K | 156 | Niem | 85 |
| PH Philippines | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 148K | — | Niem | 20 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 257K | 8 | Niem | 13 |
| IT Italy | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 310K | — | Niem | 2 |
| CA Canada | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 272K | — | Niem | 15 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 149K | — | Niem | 5 |
| IE Ireland | ≈59 est. | ≈1 in 88K | — | Niem | 1 |
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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral 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)
Niem 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 Khmer, a type of fish net. b nSSIH royal name, sacred name. SlHfiJI
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
In Serbo-Croatian, obsolete spelling of nijem
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Catalan, inflection of niar:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In lud, cape (of land)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In jam, named, called
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)
- Heinrich Niemb. 1906DEGerman politician (1906-1944)
- Volker H. Niemichthyologist
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 6 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 8 | #167,220 |
Reference works 2
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
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
- How do you pronounce Niem?
- A machine transcription gives /ɲiəm/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Niem mean?
- Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname: type Niem-.
- In which country does Niem have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 thousand people named Niem in the United States, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled niem.
- How common is the name Niem?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1,100 people in the United States have Niem as their first surname, about 1 in 290 thousand residents. No national register counts it there; the figure is ours, calibrated against the registers that do.
What do you want to know about Niem?
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/niemThe 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, “Niem”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.