Reif
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Robbery
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈɹif/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Reif is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CZCzechia1 in 56K(measured from records)
- HRCroatia1 in 73K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 78K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 55 (measured from records)
- 1 in 56K (inferred from the name graph)
3,381 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Czechia
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from OHG ahd. rīf / hrifo 'reif, hoop'; also via byname or signboard term
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Reif is read(measured from records)
Reif 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.
- English63%
Robbery.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German23%
from OHG ahd. rīf / hrifo 'reif, hoop'; also via byname or signboard term
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
ripe
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
Deutsch: wohl Berufsname zu mhd. reif ‚Seil, Band, Reifen; Längenmaß‘, auch Übername zu mhd. rîf(e) ‚reif‘/‚Reif‘; Varianten zeigen f/ff-Labialfrikativ. Belege: Reif 2898, Reiff 1015.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
Vieldeutiger Berufs- und Übername; die Karte zeigt f/ff nach Diphthong in Reif/Reiff.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Reif 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 3,381 | 1 in 98K | 3.4K | Reif | 55 |
| BR Brazil | 543 | 1 in 390K | 543 | Reif | 43 |
| CZ Czechia | 191 | 1 in 56K | 193 | — | — |
| PL Poland | 127 | 1 in 301K | 69 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 108 | 1 in 78K | 108 | Reif | 4 |
| HR Croatia | 58 | 1 in 73K | 58 | — | — |
| NO Norway | 48 | 1 in 114K | 48 | — | — |
3,381 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form); 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Reif 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 enm, A piece of clothing or gear, especially priestly.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Hans Reifb. 1899DEGerman politician (1899-1984)
- Sepp Reifb. 1937DEGerman ice hockey player (1937–2023)
- Stefan Reifb. 1944GBCairo Genizah researcher
- Wolf-Ernst Reifb. 1945DEGerman paleontologist (1945–2009)
- Alberto Reifb. 1946ITItalian footballer (1946-2012)
- Marcel Reifb. 1949DESwiss sport journalist and commentator
- Clemens Reifb. 1949DEGerman politician (CDU)
- Albert Reifb. 1951DEGerman botanist
- Taryn Reifb. 1976USAmerican actress
- Christian Reifb. 1984DEGerman long jumper
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 32 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.4K | #9,611 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.3K | #9,093 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.1K | #10,011 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 543 | #15,798 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 193 | #5,709 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 191 | #8,904 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 108 | #10,382 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 69 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 69 | #39,509 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 58 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 58 | #45,532 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 58 | #11,965 |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- 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
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 Reif come from?
- from OHG ahd. rīf / hrifo 'reif, hoop'; also via byname or signboard term Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Reif?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈɹif/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Reif mean?
- In English, Robbery.
- In which country does Reif have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.4 thousand people named Reif, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled reif.
- Where is Reif most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Reif is densest in Czechia — about 1 in 56 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Reif?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,381 people named Reif in 2010, about 1 in 98 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Reif?
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/reifThe 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, “Reif”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.