Riss
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in German: fissure, crack
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Riss is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 125K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 665K
- ATAustria≈1 in 55K
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.
- France (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 186 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 55K (inferred from the name graph)
≈990 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Austria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Riß in DE Germany.
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)
fissure, crack
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Riss is read(measured from records)
Riss is one spelling over 3 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.
- English46%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Riss in English.
- French31%
D’après Larousse, un riss est un terme géologique qui désigne la « troisième glaciation de l’ère quaternaire en Europe alpine ». Il dérive de la Riss, rivière du Bade-Wurtenberg.
as a name2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)
- German9.0%
fissure, crack
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Riss 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | ≈990 est. | ≈1 in 69K | 106 | — | 3 |
| DE Germany | ≈640 est. | ≈1 in 125K | — | Riß | 67 |
| US United States | 500 | 1 in 665K | 568 | Riss | 186 |
| BR Brazil | 344 | 1 in 615K | 344 | — | — |
| AT Austria | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Riss | 27 |
| CH Switzerland | 57 | 1 in 147K | 57 | Riss | 16 |
| EE Estonia | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 234K | listed | — | 2 |
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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Riss 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 hrx, crack, fissure
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)
- Egon Rissb. 1901ATAustrian architect
- Dan Rissb. 1910USAmerican actor (1910-1970)
- Georges Rissb. 1951FRFrench politician
- Kamila Barbara Rissb. 1984PLPolish Catholic theologian (1984-)
- Erik Rissb. 1995DEGerman speedway rider
- Catherine RissFRFrench winemaker
- Alexander RissATresearcher
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 21 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 568 | #41,313 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 550 | #37,938 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 500 | #43,206 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 344 | #23,600 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 181 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 166 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 152 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 146 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 143 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 136 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 120 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 106 | — |
Reference works 2
- 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
- What does the name Riss mean, and where does it come from?
- fissure, crack Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- In which country does Riss have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 987 people named Riss in France, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Riss?
- In the United States, the national register counted 500 people named Riss in 2010, about 1 in 665 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Riss?
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/rissThe 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, “Riss”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.