Pankow
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The most populous borough of Berlin, in the east of the city
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 13 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈpæŋkoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Pankow is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 51K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 237K
- CVCape Verde≈1 in 52K
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)
- Record sources
- 226 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 51K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,600 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Toponymic surname from the settlement name Pankow (also a district of Berlin); < SiedlungsN auf -ow. Bearer count: 714.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
How Pankow is read
(measured from records)Pankow is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English70%
The most populous borough of Berlin, in the east of the city.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German14%
Toponymic surname from the settlement name Pankow (also a district of Berlin); < SiedlungsN auf -ow. Bearer count: 714.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymic surname from a place name in -ow; bearers in Poland: 62.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
toponymischer Familienname; zu Siedlungsnamen mit -ow; Pankow v.a. in Nordostdtld., Panckow, Panko(v/ff), Panko, Pankau, Panka; keine Zahl angegeben.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
- Spanish6.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Pankow in Spanish.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Pankow 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 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 51K | listed | Pankow | 86 |
| US United States | 1,401 | 1 in 237K | 1.4K | Pankow | 226 |
| PL Poland | 270 | 1 in 142K | 146 | Pankow | 2 |
| IT Italy | ≈200 est. | ≈1 in 313K | — | Pankow | 3 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 416K | 15 | Pankow | 32 |
| NL Netherlands | 135 | 1 in 128K | 135 | Pankow | 12 |
| PY Paraguay | ≈93 est. | ≈1 in 77K | — | Pankow | 9 |
| CV Cape Verde | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Pankow | 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; the dfa-band-4 register; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)- Konstantin Pankovb. 1910RUnot in their usual nameRussian folklorist painter (1910-1942)
- Rudolf Pankovb. 1937RUnot in their usual nameSoviet and Russian actor (1937—2025)
- James Pankowb. 1947USAmerican musician, member of Chicago
- Bill Pankowb. 1952USAmerican film editor
- John Pankowb. 1954USAmerican actor (born 1954)
- Nikolai Pankovb. 1954RUnot in their usual nameRussian general, deputy Minister of Defence (born 1954)
- Nikolay Pankovb. 1965RUnot in their usual nameRussian politician
- Radovan Pankovb. 1995RSnot in their usual nameSerbian association football player
- Pavel Pankovb. 1995RUnot in their usual nameRussian volleyball player
- Rudy Pankowb. 1998USAmerican actor
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)22 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.4K | #18,196 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.4K | #19,321 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.4K | #19,472 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 135 | #14,864 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 34 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 34 | #64,569 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 29 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 29 | #71,928 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 15 | #109,436 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 4 | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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 Pankow come from?
- Toponymic surname from the settlement name Pankow (also a district of Berlin); < SiedlungsN auf -ow. Bearer count: 714. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Pankow?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈpæŋkoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Pankow mean?
- In English, The most populous borough of Berlin, in the east of the city.
- In which country does Pankow have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.6 thousand people named Pankow in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pankow.
- How common is the name Pankow?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,401 people named Pankow in 2010, about 1 in 237 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Pankow?
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/pankowThe 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, “Pankow”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.