Smolka

surname · Latin script

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 15 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026

/ˈsmɔl.ka/(recorded in a dictionary) Polish · from Wiktionary

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Smolka is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Borrowed from Polish Smolka, Smółka and Smołka.

  • SKSlovakia1 in 8.1K(measured from records)
  • CZCzechia1 in 10K
  • DEGermany≈1 in 41K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Smolka itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈2,100 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Record sources
176 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

1 in 8.1K (inferred from the name graph)

Slovakia

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)Make your nomograph ✦

Spellings & scripts

(measured from records)
SmolkaLatin(measured from records)
СмолкаCyrillic(measured from records)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

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)

Borrowed from Polish Smolka, Smółka and Smołka.

Cited for this meaning 2

  • Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
  • Wiktionary

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Smolka 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 Smolka is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany—≈2,100 est.≈1 in 41K—Smolka98
CZ Czechia—1,0401 in 10K1KSmolka50
PL Poland—7051 in 54K374Smolka57
SK Slovakia#6906711 in 8.1K671Smolka34
US United States—6531 in 509K653Smolka176
BM Bermuda#990≈2 est.≈1 in 40K—Smolka1

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; MVČR — living population register 2017; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census). 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)

Smolka is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Šmolka

  • Croatian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian

    Also written Смолка, Šmolka

  • Swedish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Sweden, Denmark

    Languages: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

    Also written Šmolka

32 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)

Smolka 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 Lithuanian, Plg. Smalkėvičius (ž1.).

    as a wordVanagas, Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)

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)
18001850190019502000Franciszek Smolka, b. 1810Stanisław Smolka, b. 1854Stanisław Smolka, b. 1882Manfred Smolka, b. 1930Josef Smolka, b. 1939Lyubov Smolka, b. 1952Gert Smolka, b. 1955Martin Smolka, b. 1959Miriam Smolka, b. 1971Louis Smolka, b. 1991
  • Franciszek Smolkab. 1810UAPolitician of Polish origin from Galicia, Chairman of Imperial Council (1810-1899)
  • Stanisław Smolkab. 1854PLPolish historian (1854–1924)
  • Stanisław Smolkab. 1882PLPolish officer
  • Manfred Smolkab. 1930DEGerman lieutenant of the border police of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), escaped to West Germany, captured by the Stasi and sentenced to death by guillotine (1930-1960)
  • Josef Smolkab. 1939CZCzech volleyballist (1939–2020)
  • Lyubov Smolkab. 1952UASoviet-Ukrainian middle-distance runner
  • Gert Smolkab. 1955DEGerman computer scientist and university teacher (born 1955)
  • Martin Smolkab. 1959CZCzech composer
  • Miriam Smolkab. 1971DEGerman actress
  • Louis Smolkab. 1991USAmerican martial artist

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)
FormalDear Smolka,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

26 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 15 countries.

Official registers attesting Smolka
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CZ CzechiaMVČR — living population register 2017—1K#1,296
CZ CzechiaKdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end)—1K#1,285
SK SlovakiaJÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census)1995671—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010653#34,618
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020619#38,482
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000590#35,957
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026374—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—374#8,890
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)2026331—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—331#9,872
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 5

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 Smolka mean, and where does it come from?
Borrowed from Polish Smolka, Smółka and Smołka. Recorded by Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames) and Wiktionary.
How do you pronounce Smolka?
In Polish /ˈsmɔl.ka/ (Wiktionary).
In which country does Smolka have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 2.1 thousand people named Smolka in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled smolka.
Where is Smolka most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Smolka is densest in Slovakia — about 1 in 8.1 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Smolka?
In Czechia, the national register counted 1,040 people named Smolka, about 1 in 10 thousand residents.
How common is Smolka compared with other names?
In Slovakia, Smolka is the 690th most common surname of 69,668 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Smolka?

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

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, “Smolka” — the 690th most common surname in Slovakia. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Smolka parses inside a full name →