Rutger
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Rutger is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the Netherlands than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Rutger är ett tyskt namn, sammansatt av fornhögtyskt hruod, hrōd, motsvarande fornvästnordiskt hróðr ’ära, beröm’ (jfr → Robert, → Rudolf, → Rolf ) och → -ger (jfr → Roger).
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.8K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 1.1M
- SESweden1 in 10K
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.
- Netherlands (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 138 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)
9,382 people
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
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)
Rutger är ett tyskt namn, sammansatt av fornhögtyskt hruod, hrōd, motsvarande fornvästnordiskt hróðr ’ära, beröm’ (jfr → Robert, → Rudolf, → Rolf ) och → -ger (jfr → Roger). I den rikssvenska almanackan 2 juni.
Sources 1
- Förnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Rutger 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | #280 | 9,382 | 1 in 1.8K | 9.4K | Rutger | 138 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,019 | 1 in 10K | 1K | Rutger | 16 |
| CN China | — | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 1.9M | — | Rutger | 5 |
| BE Belgium | — | ≈490 est. | ≈1 in 24K | 5 | Rutger | 53 |
| US United States | — | 291 | 1 in 1.1M | 291 | Rutger | 110 |
| CH Switzerland | — | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 273K | — | Rutger | 7 |
| NO Norway | — | ≈20 est. | ≈1 in 277K | 22 | — | 4 |
9,382 people counted by Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018). 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: Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); 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)
Rutger 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.
Dutch form of ROGER .
as a word
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)
- Rutger von Aschebergb. 1621SESwedish noble (1621-1693)
- Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninckb. 1761NLDutch ambassador and Grand pensionary of Holland (1761-1825)
- Arvid Posseb. 1820SEnot in their usual nameSwedish 19th century prime minister (1820-1901)
- Rut Matthijsenb. 1921NLnot in their usual nameDutch chemist, resistance fighter
- Bram van der Vlugtb. 1934NLnot in their usual nameDutch actor (1934-2020)
- Rutger Koplandb. 1934NLDutch poet, essay writer and psychiatrist (1934–2012)
- Frank-Rutger Hausmannb. 1943DEGerman historian
- Rutger Hauerb. 1944NLDutch actor (1944–2019)
- Rutger Gunnarssonb. 1946SESwedish musician, record producer, music arranger (1946–2015)
- Rutger Bregmanb. 1988NLDutch journalist, writer and historian
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 22 sources across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 16 | #46,795 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 5 | #98,170 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 3 | #63,985 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Rutger mean?
- Recorded meaning: Rutger är ett tyskt namn, sammansatt av fornhögtyskt hruod, hrōd, motsvarande fornvästnordiskt hróðr ’ära, beröm’ (jfr → Robert, → Rudolf, → Rolf ) och → -ger (jfr → Roger).
- Is Rutger a male or female name?
- Rutger is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Rutger?
- In the etymology graph, Roger, Rodger and Roar are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Rutger have the most bearers?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 9.4 thousand people named Rutger, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled rutger.
- Where is Rutger most common?
- Rutger is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 1.8 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Rutger?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 9,382 people named Rutger, about 1 in 1.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Rutger compared with other names?
- In the Netherlands, Rutger is the 280th most common given name of 101,916 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Rutger?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/rutgerThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Rutger” — the 280th most common given name in Netherlands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.