Spiller
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: (i) ‘acrobat’ or ‘jester’, from Middle English spillen ‘to play, cavort’; (ii) from a nickname for someone who wastes or makes a mess of things, from Middle English spillen ‘to spoil, waste’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/spɪlə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Spiller is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 28K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 38K
- USUnited States1 in 61K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 311 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
5,418 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Middle Englishspillen(measured from records)
- Middle Englishspillen(measured from records)
(i) ‘acrobat’ or ‘jester’, from Middle English spillen ‘to play, cavort’; (ii) from a nickname for someone who wastes or makes a mess of things, from Middle English spillen ‘to spoil, waste’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Spiller is read(measured from records)
Spiller is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English80%
(i) ‘acrobat’ or ‘jester’, from Middle English spillen ‘to play, cavort’; (ii) from a nickname for someone who wastes or makes a mess of things, from Middle English spillen ‘to spoil, waste’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
ter, from an agent deriv. of ME spill(en) to play, jest, sport (OE spilian). 2. nickname for a destructive or wasteful person, from an agent deriv. of the homonymous ME spill(en) to spoil, waste, squander (OEspilian). Cogns. (of 1): Ger.: Spieler, Spielmann, Spillmann. Low Ger.: Spelmann. Jewish (Ashkenazic): Spielman(n), S(z)pilman (occupational names for a musician).
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
jester, from an agent deriv. of ME spill(en) to play, jest, sport (OE spilian). 2. nickname for a destructive or waste¬ ful person, from an agent deriv. of the homonymous ME spill(en) to spoil, waste, squander (OE spilian).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
One who spills.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German6.6%
occupational surname: dialectal Spille- name, likely from spindle/peg making; bearer count 1297
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Spiller 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 5,418 | 1 in 61K | 5.4K | Spiller | 311 |
| DE Germany | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 28K | listed | Spiller | 113 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 38K | 2.6K | Spiller | 150 |
| IT Italy | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 56K | — | Spiller | 35 |
| DZ Algeria | ≈690 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Spiller | 1 |
| CU Cuba | ≈300 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | Spiller | 2 |
| CH Switzerland | 233 | 1 in 36K | 233 | Spiller | 16 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 37K | — | Spiller | 37 |
5,418 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); the dfa-band-5 register; 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Spiller 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 Danish, player (one who plays any game)
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)
- James Spillerb. 1765English architect and surveyor
- Frederick Spillerb. 1884GBboxer (1884–1953)
- Robert Ernest Spillerb. 1896USAmerican Literature professor
- Ljerko Spillerb. 1908ARCroatian-Argentine violinist
- Jörg-Otto Spillerb. 1942DEGerman politician
- Michael Spillerb. 1961USAmerican cinematographer, television director
- Leticia Spillerb. 1973BRBrazilian actress and producer
- Danny Spillerb. 1981GBEnglish footballer (born 1981)
- Matthew Spillerb. 1983CACanadian ice hockey defenceman
- C. J. Spillerb. 1987USAmerican football player and coach (born 1987)
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 32 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 5.4K | #6,304 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.1K | #6,150 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5K | #6,564 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 2.6K | #2,926 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 233 | #5,499 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 5 | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Spiller mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) ‘acrobat’ or ‘jester’, from Middle English spillen ‘to play, cavort’; (ii) from a nickname for someone who wastes or makes a mess of things, from Middle English spillen ‘to spoil, waste’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Spiller?
- A machine transcription gives /spɪlə/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Spiller have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 5.4 thousand people named Spiller, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled spiller.
- How common is the name Spiller?
- In the United States, the national register counted 5,418 people named Spiller in 2010, about 1 in 61 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Spiller?
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/spillerThe 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, “Spiller”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.