Pfleger
surname · Latin script
Meaning: agent noun of pflegen
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Pfleger is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 39K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 361K
- ATAustria≈1 in 8.9K
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
- 195 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,100 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Austria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
agent noun of pflegen
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Pfleger 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 | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Pfleger | 96 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 113K | — | Pfleger | 2 |
| AT Austria | #693 | ≈990 est. | ≈1 in 8.9K | — | Pfleger | 67 |
| US United States | — | 922 | 1 in 361K | 922 | Pfleger | 195 |
| BR Brazil | — | 765 | 1 in 277K | 765 | — | 1 |
| FR France | — | ≈500 est. | ≈1 in 136K | 61 | Pfleger | 2 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 243 | 1 in 44K | 243 | — | 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 — Surname Frequency 2010; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); MVČR — living population register 2017; INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Pfleger is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. phleg#re ‘Aufseher, Verwalter, Vormund’; 810 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, from pflegen 'to care for, administer'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Benedict Pflegerb. 1833ATAustrian musician and local historian
- Franz Josef Pflegerb. 1872DEGerman politician (1872-1964)
- Joseph Pflegerb. 1873FRFrench politician (1873-1957)
- Eduard Pflegerb. 1875ATAustrian musician, conductor and composer
- Albert Pflegerb. 1900FRFrench Righteous Among the Nations
- Robert Pflegerb. 1906DEGerman chemist and pharmacologist (1906-1971)
- Helmut Pflegerb. 1943DEGerman chess player and author
- Ernst Pflegerb. 1947ATAustrian politician
- Michael Pflegerb. 1949USAmerican activist
- Ewald Pflegerb. 1955ATAustrian songwriter
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 25 sources across 15 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 922 | #26,471 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 861 | #29,273 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 821 | #27,618 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 765 | #11,684 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 243 | #6,890 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 243 | #5,045 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 121 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 118 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 110 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 101 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 85 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 81 | — |
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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Pfleger mean, and where does it come from?
- agent noun of pflegen Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Pfleger have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.1 thousand people named Pfleger in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pfleger.
- How common is the name Pfleger?
- In the United States, the national register counted 922 people named Pfleger in 2010, about 1 in 361 thousand residents.
- How common is Pfleger compared with other names?
- In Austria, Pfleger is the 693rd most common surname of 127,275 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Pfleger?
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/pflegerThe 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, “Pfleger” — the 693rd most common surname in Austria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.