Wilkens
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
/ˈwɪɫkənz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wilkens is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- GBUnited Kingdom
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
A surname originating as a patronymic.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
How Wilkens is read(measured from records)
Wilkens 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.
- English67%
A surname originating as a patronymic.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
‘son of Wilkin’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- German18%
Patronymische Bildung auf -kens/-ken (k-Diminutiv/Genitiv) zu germanischen Rufnamen. Bsp. Ge(e)rkens, Gerckens, Hünnekens, Me(h)rkens, Menkens, Wil(c)kens, Winkens. Bearer count: 4775 tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Patronymische Bildung mit Suffix -kens/-ken; Variante zu Will-/-l- im germanischen Namenstamm. 2953 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
Kurz-/Koseform zu Wilhelm; patronymisch -en/-ens, 2953 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen
s. Wil(c)k; Schreibvariante mit -k nach n/l; 2694 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
- Theodoor Wilkensb. 1690NLHoubaken: Frans Moens, V2, p 354 (1690-1748)
- Alexander Wilkensb. 1881DEGerman astronomer (1881–1968)
- Heinrich Wilkensb. 1881DEGerman politician and priest (1881-1948)
- Wilhelm Wilkensb. 1893SESwedish coxswain (1893–1967)
- Otto Wilkensb. 1907DEGerman politician (1907-1999)
- May Brittb. 1934USnot in their usual nameSwedish actress (1934–2025)
- Lenny Wilkensb. 1937USAmerican basketball player and coach (1937–2025)
- Carl Wilkensb. 1958USAmerican activist
- Toni Wilkensb. 1962SEactor
- Andrea Wilkensb. 1984DEGerman footballer
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 31 sources across 17 countries.
Reference works 5
- 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
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 Wilkens mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname originating as a patronymic. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Wilkens?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɪɫkənz/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wilkens have the most bearers?
- Wilkens is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Wilkens?
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/wilkensThe 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, “Wilkens”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.