Rhein
loc · Latin script
Meaning: by the river Rhine, which is first recorded in the Roman period in the form Rhenus; it may be derived from a Celt, element meaning ‘to flow’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Rhein is a name written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in Germany.
- DEGermany
- CHSwitzerland
- PLPoland
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
by the river Rhine, which is first recorded in the Roman period in the form Rhenus; it may be derived from a Celt, element meaning ‘to flow’. Cogns.: Low Ger.: Riemann. Du.: Van R(h)yn, Van Rijn.
Sources 1
- A dictionary of surnames
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
- DEGermany
- CHSwitzerland
- PLPoland
- FRFrance
- CACanada
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Rhein 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, Rhine (a major river in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France and the Netherlands, emptying into the North Sea)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, 3. Oktober. ❖ Bekannter Namensträ ger: Ewald Mataré, deutscher Bildhauer (19./20. Jh.).
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In English, An anthraquinone found in rhubarb.
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)
- Nikolaus Rheinb. 1767ATAustrian engraver (1767–1819)
- Hermann Rheinb. 1867DEGerman politician (1867-1960)
- Fritz Rheinb. 1873DEGerman painter (1873-1948)
- Eduard Rheinb. 1900DEGerman publisher (1900–1993)
- Princess Margaret, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhineb. 1913DEnot in their usual nameHessian Royal (1913-1997)
- Princess Johanna of Hesse and by Rhineb. 1936DEnot in their usual nameonly daughter of Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark (1936–1939)
- Detlef Rheinb. 1969DEGerman designer
- Boris Rheinb. 1972DEGerman politician
- Beatrix Marzoukib. 2000FRnot in their usual nameWife of Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki
- Torben Rheinb. 2003DEGerman footballer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.9K | #15,615 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.7K | #16,072 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.7K | #15,558 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 392 | #21,097 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 110 | #10,217 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 108 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 85 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 70 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 55 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 54 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 50 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 47 | — |
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 Rhein come from?
- by the river Rhine, which is first recorded in the Roman period in the form Rhenus; it may be derived from a Celt, element meaning ‘to flow’. Cogns.: Low Ger.: Riemann. Du.: Van R(h)yn, Van Rijn. Recorded by A dictionary of surnames.
- What does the name Rhein mean?
- Recorded meaning: by the river Rhine, which is first recorded in the Roman period in the form Rhenus; it may be derived from a Celt, element meaning ‘to flow’.
- In which country does Rhein have the most bearers?
- Rhein is most frequently recorded in Germany.
What do you want to know about Rhein?
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/rheinThe 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, “Rhein”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.