Wahl

surname · Latin script

Meaning: In Poland it was understood as “Wol” = oxen

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

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

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

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 5.2K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 25K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 35K

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 Wahl 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)

≈15,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
382 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 3.0K (inferred from the name graph)

Norway

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

WahlLatin(measured from records)
ВалCyrillic(measured from records)

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)

In Poland it was understood as “Wol” = oxen.

Sources 1

  • The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Wahl 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 Wahl is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#383≈15,000 est.≈1 in 5.2K—Wahl164
US United States—13,2531 in 25K13KWahl382
ES Spain—4,334as Val1 in 12K4.3KWahl22
ID Indonesia—≈2,900 est.≈1 in 92K—Wahl9
GB United Kingdom—≈1,900 est.≈1 in 35K129Wahl70
NO Norway#4431,8021 in 3K1.8KWahl59
AT Austria—≈740 est.≈1 in 12K3Wahl52
CH Switzerland—5631 in 15K563Wahl43

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); INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024). 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)

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

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Wãhl

  • Hungarian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, United States, Switzerland

    Also written Wáhl

46 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)

Wahl 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, Toponymic surname; from mhd. walch, walhe, mnd. wale ‘Romane’, also possible as patronym from Rufname Walcho; count 7318. Variants also from place names Wahl/Wahle/Wahlen/Wall/Walle or, in the east, Slavic Wala (< Valentin).

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

  • In German, Toponymic surname from a place/settlement name; bearer count 7318.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

  • In German, Toponymic surname from a dwelling/landscape feature; bearers 121.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

  • In German, choice, election

    as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German

  • In German, choice, selection

    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)

1400160018002000Saul Wahl, b. 1541Edgar von Wahl, b. 1867Jean Wahl, b. 1888Karl Wahl, b. 1892Arthur Wahl, b. 1917Wolfgang Wahl, b. 1925Ken Wahl, b. 1954Grant Wahl, b. 1973Tyson Wahl, b. 1984Hauke Wahl, b. 1994

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 Wahl,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 33 sources across 20 countries.

Official registers attesting Wahl
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201013K#2,716
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200013K#2,574
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202013K#2,760
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.8K#556
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2019917—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2018917—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2021911—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2022910—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2020910—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2024909—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2023909—
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025901—

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 Wahl mean, and where does it come from?
In Poland it was understood as “Wol” = oxen. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
How do you pronounce Wahl?
A machine transcription gives /ˈwɑɫ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Wahl have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 15 thousand people named Wahl in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wahl.
Where is Wahl most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Wahl is densest in Norway — about 1 in 3.0 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Wahl?
In the United States, the national register counted 13,253 people named Wahl in 2010, about 1 in 25 thousand residents.
How common is Wahl compared with other names?
In Germany, Wahl is the 383rd most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Wahl?

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

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, “Wahl” — the 383rd most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Wahl parses inside a full name →