Wagner

surname · Latin script

Meaning, in English: 'Builder or driver of carts', from Middle High German wagen 'cart'

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/vɑɡnə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Wagner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 8th most common surname.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 437(inferred from the name graph)
  • ATAustria≈1 in 543
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 1.4K

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)

≈180,000 people, est.

#518 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

Sources
567 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 437 (inferred from the name graph)

Germany, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

'Builder or driver of carts', from Middle High German wagen 'cart'.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.

How Wagner is read(measured from records)

Wagner 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.

  • English69%

    'Builder or driver of carts', from Middle High German wagen 'cart'.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  • German15%

    Occupational surname: wagon-maker/cartwright.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen

    cartwright, wainwright, wheelwright

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

    Berufsname zu mhd. wagner 'Wagenmacher'; die Karte zeigt Tonvokal-Varianten mit a/e-Wechsel in Wagner-Formen.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

    Berufsname zum Wagner 'Wagen- und Karrenbauer' (Wag(e)ner-Variante); 2 Typen/83582 Tokens.

    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.

Often considered alongside

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Wagner, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Wagner 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 Wagner is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#8≈180,000 est.≈1 in 437listedWagner293
US United States#156155,7951 in 2.1K156KWagner567
GB United Kingdom#334≈22,000 est.≈1 in 3K—Wagner176
BR Brazil—≈22,000 est.≈1 in 9.7K125K—9
CA Canada#165≈16,000 est.≈1 in 2.3K—Wagner215
AT Austria#6≈16,000 est.≈1 in 543—Wagner157
CH Switzerland#1045,8041 in 1.4K5.8KWagner116
IE Ireland#215≈2,400 est.≈1 in 2.2K—Wagner26

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; IBGE — Nomes (census name API); 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)

Wagner is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name4 spellings in the group

    Also written Wágner, Wägner

  • Polish surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, Czechia, United States, Slovakia

    Languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak

    Also written Wágner, Wağner

  • Danish surname12 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, United States, Sweden, Iceland

    Languages: Danish, Norwegian, Swedish

    Also written Waagner, Wågner, Wágner

  • Arabic surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia

    Languages: Arabic, Maltese

    Also written Wágner

  • Hindi surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Wägner, Wágner

91 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)

Wagner 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.

  • Someone who produces or drives wagons, in Baden 1809.

    as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

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)

18001850190019502000Richard Wagner, b. 1813Adolph Wagner, b. 1835Cosima Wagner, b. 1837Robert F. Wagner, b. 1877Robert Wagner, b. 1930Natalie Wood, b. 1938Priscilla Presley, b. 1945Lindsay Wagner, b. 1949Natasha Gregson Wagner, b. 1970Jack Wagner, b. 1989

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 Wagner,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 77 sources across 36 countries.

Official registers attesting Wagner
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010156K#173
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000155K#152
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020149K#181
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20245.8K#83

Reference works 10

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 Wagner mean, and where does it come from?
'Builder or driver of carts', from Middle High German wagen 'cart'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Wagner?
A machine transcription gives /vɑɡnə/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Wagner have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 183 thousand people named Wagner in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wagner.
How common is the name Wagner?
In the United States, the national register counted 155,795 people named Wagner in 2010, about 1 in 2.1 thousand residents.
How common is Wagner compared with other names?
In Germany, Wagner is the 8th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Wagner?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

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

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, “Wagner” — the 8th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Wagner parses inside a full name →