Poignant
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in French: present participle of poindre
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/pwaɲɑ̃/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Poignant is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 37K(inferred from the name graph)
- SESweden≈1 in 255K
- ESSpain≈1 in 831K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 204 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 37K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,800 people, est.
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
present participle of poindre
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Poignant is read(measured from records)
Poignant is one spelling over 2 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.
- French92%
present participle of poindre
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- English6.0%
Sharp-pointed; keen.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Poignant 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 37K | 243 | Poignant | 204 |
| US United States | ≈61 est. | ≈1 in 5.4M | listed | Poignant | 29 |
| ES Spain | ≈60 est. | ≈1 in 831K | — | Poignant | 4 |
| SE Sweden | ≈40 est. | ≈1 in 255K | — | Poignant | 12 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈18 est. | ≈1 in 3.7M | 6 | Poignant | 6 |
| CH Switzerland | 6 | 1 in 1.4M | 6 | — | 2 |
| BE Belgium | 5 | 1 in 2.3M | 5 | Poignant | 7 |
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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
- Emil Poignantb. 1829SESwedish politician and county governor
- Hubert Poignantb. 1901FRFrench politician
- Lucien Poignantb. 1905FRFrench painter (1905-1941)
- Simone Poignantb. 1905FRFrench researcher
- Fernand Poignantb. 1908FRFrench politician (1908-1988)
- Jan Poignantb. 1941SESwedish sports shooter
- Bernard Poignantb. 1945FRFrench politician
- Serge Poignantb. 1947FRFrench politician
- Émile PoignantFRFrench architect
- Etienne Léon PoignantFrench printer (active 1773-1791)
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 7 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 336 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 303 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 302 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 266 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 264 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 244 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 243 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 228 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 197 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 144 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 132 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 6 | #89,778 |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Poignant mean, and where does it come from?
- present participle of poindre Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Poignant?
- A machine transcription gives /pwaɲɑ̃/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Poignant have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.8 thousand people named Poignant in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled poignant.
- How common is the name Poignant?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 6 people named Poignant in 2024, about 1 in 1.4 million residents.
What do you want to know about Poignant?
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/poignantThe 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, “Poignant”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.