Schefer
surname · Latin script
Meaning: variant of Schäfer 'shepherd'
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/stʃɛfeɾ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Schefer is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country.
- ARArgentina1 in 29K(measured from records)
- BRBrazil1 in 84K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 9.3K
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.
- Brazil (measured from records)
- Sources
- 64 (measured from records)
- 1 in 9.3K (inferred from the name graph)
2,513 people
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Middle Englishschepherde(inferred from the name graph)via 'shepherd'
- Old Englishsċēaphierde(inferred from the name graph)via 'shepherd'
Steps marked ◐ come from the entry for the form named above them, not from this name's own sources.
variant of Schäfer 'shepherd'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Where in the world(measured from records)
Schefer 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | 2,513 | 1 in 84K | 2.5K | Schefer | 64 |
| AR Argentina | 1,551 | 1 in 29K | 1.6K | Schefer | 51 |
| CH Switzerland | 906 | 1 in 9.3K | 906 | Schefer | 11 |
| GT Guatemala | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Schefer | 2 |
| US United States | 197 | 1 in 1.7M | 225 | Schefer | 34 |
| UY Uruguay | 23 | 1 in 147K | 23 | Schefer | 3 |
2,513 people counted by IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public). 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)
- Johannes Scheferb. 1738CHSwiss politician (1738-1799)
- Leopold Scheferb. 1784DEGerman poet, novelist and composer
- Charles Scheferb. 1820FRFrench historian (1820-1898)
- Jules Scheferb. 1830FRFrench diplomat
- Christian Scheferb. 1866FRFrench teacher and writer
- Jean-Louis Scheferb. 1938FRFrench writer, philosopher and art criticism (1938–2022)
- Markus Scheferb. 1965CHSwiss university teacher
- Bertrand Scheferb. 1972FRFrench writer, screenwriter and actor
- Marc Scheferb. 1981CHSwiss ice hockey player
- Raquel Scheferb. 1981PTPortuguese researcher, a filmmaker, a film curator
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)
Attested in 20 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 2.5K | #3,989 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 1.6K | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 906 | #1,324 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 225 | #88,580 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 224 | #79,115 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 197 | #93,125 |
| UY Uruguay | INE Uruguay — Apellidos más frecuentes 1902–2024 (Tableau Public) | — | 23 | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Schefer mean, and where does it come from?
- variant of Schäfer 'shepherd' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Schefer?
- A machine transcription gives /stʃɛfeɾ/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- In which country does Schefer have the most bearers?
- In Brazil, the national register counted about 2.5 thousand people named Schefer, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled schefer.
- Where is Schefer most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Schefer is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 9.3 thousand people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Schefer?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 2,513 people named Schefer, about 1 in 84 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Schefer?
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/scheferThe 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, “Schefer”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.