Prien
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Bergername zum Dialektwort für den Schuster-Ahle/Stechwerkzeug; Bärenzahl 472 (Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 6 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
Prien is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 75K(inferred from the name graph)
- DKDenmark1 in 77K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 300Kfew records
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
- 149 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 75K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100 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)Bergername zum Dialektwort für den Schuster-Ahle/Stechwerkzeug; Bärenzahl 472.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Prien is found
(measured from records)Prien 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 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 75K | listed | — | 1 |
| US United States | 473 | 1 in 703K | 490 | Prien | 149 |
| PH Philippines | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 476K | — | Prien | 2 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 564K | — | Prien | 3 |
| AU Australia | ≈90 est. | ≈1 in 302K | — | Prien | 35 |
| DK Denmark | 76 | 1 in 77K | 76 | — | 2 |
| SG Singapore | ≈14 est. | ≈1 in 419K | — | Prien | 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); the dfa-band-5 register. 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)Prien is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Indirekter Berufsname zum Schuhmacher; 472 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, from ON Prien (Chiemsee)
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Khmer, hunter, fisherman. {Th, phraan.) (possibly related to S. Pa. vana ‘forest.’) [msunj bird hunter. [msE[n (= nsin;) trapper, hunter. big^g ame hunter . [mSfLj^O (= tSCiJ19fiJS0, Hfif^Dp) fisherman (with a hook). [mswMntii fish erman (with a net). [tnu
as a wordHeadley, Cambodian-English Dictionary, Volume I (ក-ភ)
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)- Günther Prienb. 1908DEGerman U-boat commander during World War II
- Hans-Jürgen Prienb. 1935DEGerman church historian, theologian and historian
- Karin Prienb. 1965DEGerman politician
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)14 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 6 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Prien mean?
- Recorded meaning: Bergername zum Dialektwort für den Schuster-Ahle/Stechwerkzeug; Bärenzahl 472.
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Prien?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 thousand people named Prien in Germany, more than in any other country we hold. After it come United States, Philippines, South Africa and Australia; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Prien?
- In the United States, the national register counted 473 people named Prien in 2010, about 1 in 703 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Prien?
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/prienThe 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, “Prien”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.