Töpfer
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Occupational surname: potter; bearer count not printed on this page (Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 7 countries · latest register: CBG Familienamenbank, 2007
/ˈtœpfər/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Töpfer is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In the Bahamas it is the 76th most common surname.
- DEGermany≈1 in 14K(inferred from the name graph)
- ATAustria≈1 in 62Kfew records
- NLNetherlands1 in 98K
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 Töpfer itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 193 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,200 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Töpfer in other scripts: Latin
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Toepfer in US United States, GB United Kingdom, BS Bahamas and 1 more and Topfer in NL Netherlands.
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.
How to pronounce Töpfer
- German:/ˈtœpfər/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Occupational surname: potter; bearer count not printed on this page.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Töpfer is found
(measured from records)Töpfer 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 14K | — | Töpfer | 92 |
| US United States | — | 1,256as Toepfer | 1 in 265K | 1.3K | Toepfer | 193 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 177 | 1 in 98K | 177 | Topfer | 7 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 447K | 18 | Toepfer | 35 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 62K | — | Töpfer | 16 |
| BS Bahamas | #76 | ≈19 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Toepfer | 2 |
| BZ Belize | — | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Toepfer | 1 |
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); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)Töpfer is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Occupational surname: potter; bearer count not given on this page.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, potter
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Berufsname: 'Töpfer' = jemand, der Töpfe/Keramik herstellt; umfasst regionale Varianten wie Hafner, Haffner, Häffner, Euler, Ulner.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname: Töpferhandwerk; von mhd. topf/potter 'Topf, Gefäß' bzw. dem Töpfer als Hersteller von Gefäßen.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, Berufsname: Töpfer, 'potter' (vgl. mnd. top/doppe 'kleines Gefäß/Topf' bzw. 'Zopf' in der Diskussion).
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
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)- Johann Gottlob Töpferb. 1791DEorgan builder (1791–1870)
- Klaus Töpferb. 1938DEGerman politician (1938–2024)
- Edeltraut Töpferb. 1949DEGerman judge and politician
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)12 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 7 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Töpfer mean, and where does it come from?
- Occupational surname: potter; bearer count not printed on this page. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen.
- What are other forms of the name Töpfer?
- In the etymology graph, Topf is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Töpfer?
- In German /ˈtœpfər/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Töpfer?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.2 thousand people named Töpfer in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled töpfer. After it come United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Austria; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Töpfer?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 177 people named Töpfer in 2007, about 1 in 98 thousand residents.
- How common is Töpfer compared with other names?
- In the Bahamas, Töpfer is the 76th most common surname of 3,175 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Töpfer?
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/t%C3%B6pferThe 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, “Töpfer” — the 76th most common surname in the Bahamas. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.