Rudel
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rudel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In American Samoa it is the 44th most common surname. In German, recorded as from a short form of Rudolf or another Rudolf- name.
- DEGermany≈1 in 56K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 1.2M
- ASAmerican Samoa≈1 in 4.5K
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)
- Sources
- 146 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.5K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,400 people, est.
Highest-authority source
American Samoa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
from a short form of Rudolf or another Rudolf- name
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Rudel is read(measured from records)
Rudel is one spelling over 4 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.
- English36%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Rudel in English.
- Spanish22%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Rudel in Spanish.
- German21%
from a short form of Rudolf or another Rudolf- name
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
pack (of wolves, dogs, hyenas etc.)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French12%
Variante courte de Rudolf/Rodolphe.
as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Rudel 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 | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 56K | listed | Rudel | 93 |
| PK Pakistan | — | ≈560 est. | ≈1 in 419K | — | Rudel | 1 |
| AR Argentina | — | 317 | 1 in 143K | 317 | — | 1 |
| FR France | — | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 232K | 21 | — | 1 |
| US United States | — | 289 | 1 in 1.2M | 364 | Rudel | 146 |
| SI Slovenia | — | 25 | 1 in 84K | 25 | — | 2 |
| AS American Samoa | #44 | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 4.5K | — | Rudel | 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; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); stat.si Imena rojstva — full name register (per-token frequency + rank); 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)
Rudel 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 Polish, synonym of ster (“helm, rudder”)
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)
- Jaufré Rudelb. 1000FRprince of Blaye and troubadour
- Fortunato Rudelb. 1818IT(1818 -1874)
- Alwin Rudelb. 1850DEGerman papermaker and writer
- Elizabeth Rudel Smithb. 1911USCanadian-born American treasurer (1911-1997)
- Hans-Ulrich Rudelb. 1916DEGerman World War II Stuka pilot and neo-Nazi activist (1916–1982)
- Julius Rudelb. 1921USAmerican conductor and impresario (1921-2014)
- Christian Rudelb. 1928FRFrench journalist
- Manfred Rudelb. 1939DEGerman painter and politician (1939–2023)
- Drago RudelSIresearcher
- Sylvie RudelFRFrench lecturer in business economics
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 35 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 364 | #59,889 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 344 | #55,732 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 317 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 289 | #68,122 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 57 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 49 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 45 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 39 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 38 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 35 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 35 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 35 | — |
Reference works 6
- 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
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Rudel mean, and where does it come from?
- from a short form of Rudolf or another Rudolf- name Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- In which country does Rudel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.4 thousand people named Rudel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rudel.
- How common is the name Rudel?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 317 people named Rudel, about 1 in 143 thousand residents.
- How common is Rudel compared with other names?
- In American Samoa, Rudel is the 44th most common surname of 292 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Rudel?
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/rudelThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Rudel” — the 44th most common surname in American Samoa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.