Schenke

surname · Latin script

Meaning: server of wine, MHG schenke (OHG scenko, from scenken Schiller i

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

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

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 30K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 1.3M
  • NLNetherlands1 in 201K

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)

≈2,700 people, est.

Sources
106 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 30K (inferred from the name graph)

Germany, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

server of wine, MHG schenke (OHG scenko, from scenken Schiller i. German: nickname for a person with a squint, from an agent deriv. of MHG schilhen to squint (from 550 Schmadicke Schilling schelh squinting, OHG scelah). z. Jewish (S Ashkenazic): see Schuler 2. Vars. (of i): Schilcher. (Of 2): Shil(l)er.

Sources 1

  • The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Schenke 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 Schenke is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany≈2,700 est.≈1 in 30K—Schenke100
US United States2581 in 1.3M268Schenke106
NL Netherlands861 in 201K86Schenke16
BR Brazil691 in 3.1M69——
CA Canada≈67 est.≈1 in 561K—Schenke13
CH Switzerland201 in 420K20Schenke11
FI Finland≈14 est.≈1 in 397K—Schenke1

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 2000; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)

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

  • Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Chile, Brazil, United States, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Schénké

  • French surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, United States

    Also written Schenké

28 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)

Schenke is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Dutch, singular present subjunctive of schenken

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In hrx, to gift

    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)

1850190019502000Margaret Schenke, b. 1888Ernst Schenke, b. 1896Wolf Schenke, b. 1914Wolf-Rüdiger Schenke, b. 1941Siegfried Schenke, b. 1943Frank Schenke, b. 1944Angelika Schenke, b. 1950Dirk Schenke, b. 1973Tobias Schenke, b. 1981

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 18 sources across 10 countries.

Official registers attesting Schenke
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000268#68,569
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010258#74,826
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020245#82,881
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)200786#21,419
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—69#83,359
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202420#36,564
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 3

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname 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

Where does the name Schenke come from?
server of wine, MHG schenke (OHG scenko, from scenken Schiller i. German: nickname for a person with a squint, from an agent deriv. Recorded by The Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles.
What does the name Schenke mean?
Recorded meaning: server of wine, MHG schenke (OHG scenko, from scenken Schiller i.
What are other forms of the name Schenke?
In the etymology graph, Schänke is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Schenke have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 2.7 thousand people named Schenke in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled schenke.
How common is the name Schenke?
In the United States, the national register counted 258 people named Schenke in 2010, about 1 in 1.3 million residents.

What do you want to know about Schenke?

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

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, “Schenke”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Schenke parses inside a full name →