Wissel
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from ON Wissel, Kleve (or from Wizo)
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈwɪsəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wissel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 40K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 517K
- LSLesotho≈1 in 28K
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)
- Sources
- 202 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Lesotho, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from ON Wissel, Kleve (or from Wizo)
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wissel 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 | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 40K | — | Wissel | 106 |
| US United States | — | 643 | 1 in 517K | 816 | Wissel | 202 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈87 est. | ≈1 in 715K | — | Wissel | 3 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 81 | 1 in 213K | 81 | Wissel | 22 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈70 est. | ≈1 in 538K | — | Wissel | 15 |
| LS Lesotho | #353 | ≈70 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Wissel | 1 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 415K | — | Wissel | 2 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; 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)
Wissel is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Dutch, points; switch (in Flanders a "wissel" has the normal masculine grammatical gender, in the railroad sector in the Netherlands it is neutral)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In pea, draft, bill of exchange
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In dum, swap, exchange
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)
- Joseph Wisselb. 1830USGerman-American clergyman
- Adolf Wisselb. 1894DEGerman painter (1894-1973)
- Hans Wisselb. 1897DEGerman sculptor
- Manfred Sihle-Wisselb. 1934DEGerman sculptor
- Georg Wisselb. 1964DEGerman jazz and improv musician
- Jens Wisselb. 1968DEGerman social scientist
- Patricia Wisselb. 1975DEGerman politician
- Alex Wisselb. 1983DEArtist
- Max Wisselb. 1989DEGerman racing driver
- Daniel WisselDEDr. rer. nat. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn 2017
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 16 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 816 | #30,610 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 781 | #28,700 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 643 | #35,057 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 81 | #22,284 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Wissel mean, and where does it come from?
- from ON Wissel, Kleve (or from Wizo) Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Wissel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɪsəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Wissel have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.0 thousand people named Wissel in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wissel.
- How common is the name Wissel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 643 people named Wissel in 2010, about 1 in 517 thousand residents.
- How common is Wissel compared with other names?
- In Lesotho, Wissel is the 353rd most common surname of 5,753 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wissel?
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/wisselThe 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, “Wissel” — the 353rd most common surname in Lesotho. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.