Potempa
surname · Latin script
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 8 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/pɔˈtɛm.pa/(recorded in a dictionary) Polish · from Wiktionary
Potempa is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Poland than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Variant of Potępa.
- PLPoland1 in 24K(measured from records)
- DKDenmark1 in 72K
- USUnited States1 in 629K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Poland (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 44 (measured from records)
- 1 in 24K (inferred from the name graph)
1,599 people, 2026
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Poland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Variant of Potępa.
Cited for this meaning 1
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Potempa 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | 1,599 | 1 in 24K | 814 | Potempa | 44 |
| US United States | 529 | 1 in 629K | 529 | Potempa | 19 |
| DK Denmark | 81 | 1 in 72K | 81 | — | — |
| CZ Czechia | 10 | 1 in 1.1M | 10 | — | — |
| NO Norway | 6 | 1 in 911K | 6 | — | — |
1,599 people counted by dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames), 2026. 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: dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); MVČR — living population register 2017; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)- Georg Potempab. 1928DEGerman writer (1928-1998)
- Jan Potempab. 1955PLPolish biologist and researcher
- Annette Potempab. 1976DEGerman actress and voice actress
- Masha Potempab. 1989DEGerman musician
- Kenneth PotempaDanish singer
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)17 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 8 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 814 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 814 | #3,809 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 785 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 785 | #4,045 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 529 | #41,164 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 525 | #44,135 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 521 | #39,678 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 81 | #6,759 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 10 | #81,580 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 6 | #65,655 |
| 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
- 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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Potempa mean, and where does it come from?
- Variant of Potępa. Recorded by Wiktionary.
- How do you pronounce Potempa?
- In Polish /pɔˈtɛm.pa/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Potempa have the most bearers?
- In Poland, the national register counted about 1.6 thousand people named Potempa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled potempa.
- Where is Potempa most common?
- Potempa is densest in Poland, where the national register counts about 1 in 24 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Potempa?
- In Poland, the national register counted 1,599 people named Potempa in 2026, about 1 in 24 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Potempa?
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/potempaThe 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, “Potempa”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.