Wilke
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A surname originating as a patronymic
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈwɪɫk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wilke is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 4K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 41K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 29K
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)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 336 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈20,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
Nd. diminutive surname type with -ke(n)(s), incl. lenited -ge(n)(s), palatalized -je(n)(s) and shifted -chen variants; 53 types/125368 tokens.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
How Wilke is read(measured from records)
Wilke 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.
- English59%
A surname originating as a patronymic.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German29%
Nd. diminutive surname type with -ke(n)(s), incl. lenited -ge(n)(s), palatalized -je(n)(s) and shifted -chen variants; 53 types/125368 tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Germanic patronymic/diminutive in -ke (< -kīn or weak genitive); NW German type. 24 types/40,756 tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Niederdeutsches Patronym mit Diminutivsuffix -ke aus germ. Rufnamen; Typ [Wil]ke, 35 Typen/90.280 Tokens. Morphologisches Muster: patronymisches Diminutiv -ke (< -(i)ko/-ika).
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Diminutiv/Hypokoristikum zu einem Rufnamen auf Wil-; auf der Karte im patronymischen starken Genitiv mit -s. Morphologisches Muster: -ke-Diminutiv + Genitiv -s.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Diminutiv/Hypokoristikum auf -ke zu einem Rufnamen auf Wil-; demonstriert die nord- und ostmitteldeutsche Verkleinerungsbildung.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
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)
Wilke 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 | #239 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Wilke | 175 |
| US United States | — | 8,106 | 1 in 41K | 8.1K | Wilke | 336 |
| BR Brazil | — | ≈2,200 est. | ≈1 in 95K | 839 | — | 3 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 175K | — | Wilke | 12 |
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈1,000 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Wilke | 29 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 388 | 1 in 45K | 388 | Wilke | 38 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Wilke | 16 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈140 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Wilke | 7 |
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); 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Rudolf Wilkeb. 1873DEGerman caricaturist (1873–1908)
- Robert J. Wilkeb. 1914USAmerican actor (1914-1989)
- Günther Wilkeb. 1925DEGerman chemist (1925–2016)
- Heinz Wilkeb. 1927DEGerman architect (1927-1992)
- Birthe Wilkeb. 1936DKDanish singer
- Martin Wilkeb. 1957DEGerman politician
- Marina Wilkeb. 1958DEEast German coxswain
- Alec Empireb. 1972DEnot in their usual nameGerman musician
- René Wilkeb. 1984DEGerman politician
- Kristof Wilkeb. 1985DEGerman rower
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 40 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 8.1K | #4,386 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 7.8K | #4,191 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 7.3K | #4,693 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.6K | #6,092 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 388 | #5,177 |
| 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 given-name tokens
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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
- Where does the name Wilke come from?
- Nd. diminutive surname type with -ke(n)(s), incl. lenited -ge(n)(s), palatalized -je(n)(s) and shifted -chen variants; 53 types/125368 tokens. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen.
- How do you pronounce Wilke?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɪɫk/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Wilke mean?
- In English, A surname originating as a patronymic.
- In which country does Wilke have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 20 thousand people named Wilke in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wilke.
- How common is the name Wilke?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,106 people named Wilke in 2010, about 1 in 41 thousand residents.
- How common is Wilke compared with other names?
- In Germany, Wilke is the 239th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wilke?
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/wilkeThe 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, “Wilke” — the 239th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.