Nies
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. from a reduced form of the personal name Dionys (see Dennis), which was stressed on the last syllable; this was a popular personal name as a result of the influence of the French Saint Denis
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Nies is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 29K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 143K
- NLNetherlands1 in 38K
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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 273 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 29K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
1. from a reduced form of the personal name Dionys (see Dennis), which was stressed on the last syllable; this was a popular personal name as a result of the influence of the French Saint Denis. 2. possibly in some cases from the female personal name Agnes, also a saint’s name, in the form ofAgnise.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Nies 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈2,800 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Nies | 111 |
| US United States | 2,321 | 1 in 143K | 2.3K | Nies | 273 |
| NL Netherlands | 456 | 1 in 38K | 456 | Nies | 33 |
| IT Italy | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 157K | — | Nies | 5 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 203K | 9 | Nies | 25 |
| BE Belgium | 300 | 1 in 39K | 314 | Nies | 26 |
| IE Ireland | ≈46 est. | ≈1 in 113K | — | Nies | 2 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Statbel — Noms de famille (family names). 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)
Nies 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 French, second-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of nier
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Catalan, second-person singular present indicative of niar
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, inflection of niezen:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Maltese, people
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In och, To fill up, stop up
as a wordSchuessler, ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (2007)
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)
- Friedrich Niesb. 1804DEGerman printer and entrepreneur
- August Niesb. 1854DEGerman teacher (1854-1931)
- Konrad Niesb. 1862USAmerican author (1862-1922)
- Maria Niesb. 1897DEGerman painter (1897-1956)
- Walter Niesb. 1918DEGerman photographer and journalist (1918-2008)
- Jean Niesb. 1924NLDutch painter (1924-2018)
- Helen W. Niesb. 1925USAmerican judge (1925–1996)
- Fritz Niesb. 1934DEGerman university teacher (1934–2023)
- Jack Niesb. 1937USAmerican basketball referee
- Eric Niesb. 1971USAmerican model
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 24 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.3K | #13,171 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.1K | #13,181 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.1K | #14,014 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 456 | #4,298 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Noms de famille (family names) | — | 314 | #5,390 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 300 | #5,503 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 9 | #154,387 |
| 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
- 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
- Where does the name Nies come from?
- 1. from a reduced form of the personal name Dionys (see Dennis), which was stressed on the last syllable; this was a popular personal name as a result of the influence of the French Saint Denis. 2. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What does the name Nies mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. from a reduced form of the personal name Dionys (see Dennis), which was stressed on the last syllable; this was a popular personal name as a result of the influence of the French Saint Denis.
- In which country does Nies have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.8 thousand people named Nies in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nies.
- How common is the name Nies?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,321 people named Nies in 2010, about 1 in 143 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Nies?
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/niesThe 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, “Nies”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.