Zell
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Obsolete name for the island of Yell, one of the Shetland islands
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/zɛɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zell is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 27K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 109K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 167K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 298 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
3,049 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name in the Zell- group; the page notes Zell forms a nest in PLZ 884 Biberach/Riß.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
How Zell is read(measured from records)
Zell 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.
- English74%
Obsolete name for the island of Yell, one of the Shetland islands.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German13%
Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name in the Zell- group; the page notes Zell forms a nest in PLZ 884 Biberach/Riß.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymic surname from place name Zell; bearer count 1502.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymischer Familienname: aus Ortsnamen wie Zell/Celle/Zelle < lat. cella 'Zelle, Klosterzelle'; Belegformen und Varianten in der Karte belegen die Herkunft aus kirchlichen SiedlungsN.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymischer Familienname: von Orts- und Wohnstättennamen zu ahd. zella, mhd. zelle, celle 'Klosterzelle, Einsiedlerklause, Kloster, (klösterlicher) Vorratsraum, Wirtschaftshof, Nebenkloster'. Bearer count: 1502.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
from Latin cella ‘cell, cloister annex; farmstead’
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
Zell 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 3,049 | 1 in 109K | 3.1K | Zell | 298 |
| DE Germany | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 27K | listed | Zell | 111 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 167K | 41 | Zell | 60 |
| IT Italy | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 185K | — | Zell | 2 |
| CA Canada | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 152K | — | Zell | 43 |
| AU Australia | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 107K | 1 | Zell | 54 |
| SE Sweden | 203 | 1 in 50K | 203 | Zell | 24 |
| AT Austria | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 77K | — | Zell | 17 |
| SG Singapore | ≈99 est. | ≈1 in 63K | — | Zell | 8 |
3,049 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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 2000; the dfa-band-4 register; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
- Matthäus Zellb. 1477DEGerman Lutheran pastor
- Katharina Zellb. 1497FRGerman writer
- Ulrich Zellb. 1500DEGerman printer
- Heinrich Zellb. 1518DEGerman printer
- Christian Zellb. 1683DEharpsichord maker
- Karl Zellb. 1793DEGerman classical philologist (1793-1873)
- Franz Zellb. 1866DEGerman architect (1866-1961)
- Sam Zellb. 1941USAmerican billionaire investor (1941–2023)
- Kit Zellb. 1954USAmerican soccer player
- Annika Zellb. 1965SESwedish female orienteer and ski orienteer
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 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.1K | #9,708 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3K | #10,520 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.8K | #10,815 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 203 | #4,104 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 41 | #57,456 |
| DE Germany | Deutscher Familiennamenatlas Band 4 | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Where does the name Zell come from?
- Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name in the Zell- group; the page notes Zell forms a nest in PLZ 884 Biberach/Riß. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Zell?
- A machine transcription gives /zɛɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Zell mean?
- In English, Obsolete name for the island of Yell, one of the Shetland islands.
- In which country does Zell have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.0 thousand people named Zell, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zell.
- How common is the name Zell?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,049 people named Zell in 2010, about 1 in 109 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Zell?
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/zellThe 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, “Zell”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.