Prüfer
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Occupational surname from Prüfer 'examiner, inspector'
/ˈpʁyːfɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Prüfer is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 42K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States≈1 in 3.1M
- NONorway1 in 391K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Prüfer itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 73 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 42K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,900 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Prufer in US United States, PL Poland and Pruefer in FI Finland.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Occupational surname from Prüfer 'examiner, inspector'. Bearer count: 1293.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Prüfer 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 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Prüfer | 66 |
| US United States | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 3.1M | listed | Prufer | 73 |
| FR France | ≈40 est. | ≈1 in 1.7M | 9 | — | 1 |
| BR Brazil | 35 | 1 in 6M | 35 | — | 1 |
| PL Poland | 34 | 1 in 1.1M | 21 | Prufer | 2 |
| AT Austria | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 415K | — | Prüfer | 8 |
| NO Norway | 14 | 1 in 391K | 14 | Prüfer | 5 |
| CH Switzerland | 12 | 1 in 700K | 12 | — | 1 |
| FI Finland | ≈12 est. | ≈1 in 463K | — | Pruefer | 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: IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); 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)
Prüfer is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Berufsname: Prüfer, amtlicher Kontrolleur/Schätzer von Preisen, Qualität oder Abgaben.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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 Wilhelm Prüferb. 1818DEGerman politician (1818-1888)
- Arthur Prüferb. 1860DEGerman musicologist, writer, jurist and philologist
- Curt Prüferb. 1881DEGerman diplomat (1881–1959)
- Kurt Prüferb. 1891DEGerman engineer (1891-1952)
- Heinz Prüferb. 1896DEGerman mathematician (1896–1934)
- Heinz Prüferb. 1948DEGerman guitarist
- Michaël Prüferb. 1959FRFrench speed skiing
- Tillmann Prüferb. 1974DEGerman journalist
- Kay Prüferb. 1978DEresearcher
- Benjamin Prüferb. 1979DEGerman journalist and author
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 8 sources across 4 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 21 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 21 | #87,924 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 13 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 13 | #117,422 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 12 | #53,184 |
Reference works 3
- 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 Prüfer come from?
- Occupational surname from Prüfer 'examiner, inspector'. Bearer count: 1293. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- How do you pronounce Prüfer?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈpʁyːfɐ/ (IPA) for German.
- What does the name Prüfer mean?
- Recorded meaning: Occupational surname from Prüfer 'examiner, inspector'.
- In which country does Prüfer have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.9 thousand people named Prüfer in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled prüfer.
- How common is the name Prüfer?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 35 people named Prüfer, about 1 in 6.0 million residents.
What do you want to know about Prüfer?
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/pr%C3%BCferThe 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, “Prüfer”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.