Saunier
surname · Latin script
Meaning: salter; one who extracts salt
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 14 countries · latest register: Ministere de l'Interieur, 2025
/sɔɲe/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Saunier is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in France than in any other country.
- FRFrance≈1 in 8.9K(inferred from the name graph)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 61K
- GAGabon≈1 in 108K
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)
- Record sources
- 269 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.9K (inferred from the name graph)
≈7,600 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)salter; one who extracts salt
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Where in the world
(measured from records)Saunier 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 | #557 | ≈7,600 est. | ≈1 in 8.9K | 1K | Saunier | 269 |
| US United States | — | 775 | 1 in 429K | 795 | Saunier | 102 |
| BR Brazil | — | 224 | 1 in 945K | 224 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | — | 138 | 1 in 61K | 138 | Saunier | 25 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈95 est. | ≈1 in 691K | 16 | Saunier | 15 |
| BE Belgium | — | 31 | 1 in 378K | 31 | Saunier | 14 |
| GA Gabon | — | ≈21 est. | ≈1 in 108K | 1 | — | 2 |
| UY Uruguay | — | 18 | 1 in 188K | 18 | — | — |
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); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register); Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public); Ministere de l'Interieur — 2025 candidate lists (local + legislative). 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Jean Saunierb. 1939FRFrench writer (1939–1992)
- Claude Saunierb. 1943FRFrench politician
- Nicole Saunierb. 1947FRFrench film editor
- Bruno Saunierb. 1963FRFrench ice hockey player
- Nelly Saunierb. 1964FRFrench artist
- Franck Saunierb. 1966FRFrench ice hockey player
- Johanne Saunier Clayburghb. 1967BEFrench dancer and choreographer
- Greg Saunierb. 1969USAmerican musician
- Clément Saunierb. 1979FRFrench trumpeter
- Matthieu Saunierb. 1990FRFrench association football player
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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)23 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 14 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 1.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 1.3K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 1.2K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 1.1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 1K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 997 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1901 | 937 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 920 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 795 | #31,239 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 775 | #30,222 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1911 | 764 | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Saunier mean, and where does it come from?
- salter; one who extracts salt Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Saunier?
- A machine transcription gives /sɔɲe/ (IPA) for French.
- In which country does Saunier have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 7.6 thousand people named Saunier in France, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled saunier.
- How common is the name Saunier?
- In the United States, the national register counted 775 people named Saunier in 2010, about 1 in 429 thousand residents.
- How common is Saunier compared with other names?
- In France, Saunier is the 557th most common surname of 1,200,812 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Saunier?
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/saunierThe 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, “Saunier” — the 557th most common surname in France. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.