Ruffe

surname · Latin script

Meaning: Gymnocephalus cernua, a small Eurasian freshwater fish

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

/ʁyf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Ruffe is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • FRFrance≈1 in 252K(inferred from the name graph)
  • BEBelgium1 in 2.3M
  • ARArgentina1 in 2.4M

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)

≈270 people, est.

Sources
112 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 252K (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

Gymnocephalus cernua, a small Eurasian freshwater fish.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ruffe 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.

Where Ruffe is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
FR France≈270 est.≈1 in 252K49Ruffe112
US United States≈110 est.≈1 in 3.1Mlisted—2
GB United Kingdom≈24 est.≈1 in 2.7M43——
AR Argentina191 in 2.4M19——
ES Spain61 in 8.3M6—3
BE Belgium51 in 2.3M5——

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: INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); the us-wru-surnames-voterfile 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Ruffe is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia

    Languages: English, German

    Also written Ruffé, Rüffe, Rueffe

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, United States, Venezuela, Chile

    Also written Ruffé

21 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Ruffe 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, alternative form of rof

    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.

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalMadame, Monsieur,Dear Ruffe, (English)
InformalMadame, Monsieur,Hello, (English)

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 5 sources across 5 countries.

Official registers attesting Ruffe
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)198171—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)195167—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)197160—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196153—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)199149—
GB United KingdomSurnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)200243#55,819
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)194133—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)191130—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)193127—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)192126—
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—19—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)190118—

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Ruffe mean, and where does it come from?
Gymnocephalus cernua, a small Eurasian freshwater fish. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Ruffe?
A machine transcription gives /ʁyf/ (IPA) for French.
In which country does Ruffe have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 269 people named Ruffe in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ruffe.
How common is the name Ruffe?
In Argentina, the national register counted 19 people named Ruffe, about 1 in 2.4 million residents.

What do you want to know about Ruffe?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ruffe

The 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, “Ruffe”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ruffe parses inside a full name →