Zimmerman
surname · Latin script
Meaning: ‘Carpenter’, from MHG zimbermann, literally ‘timber-man’
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/zɪmɚmən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zimmerman is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Switzerland it is the 18th most common surname.
- USUnited States1 in 4K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 4.6K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 6.2K
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 Zimmerman 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 515 (measured from records)
- 1 in 4.0K (inferred from the name graph)
≈280,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Zimmermann in DE Germany, CH Switzerland, AT Austria.
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)
‘Carpenter’, from MHG zimbermann, literally ‘timber-man’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zimmerman 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈280,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.1K | — | Zimmerman | 15 |
| DE Germany | #22 | ≈97,000 est. | ≈1 in 830 | — | Zimmermann | 247 |
| US United States | #371 | 83,265 | 1 in 4K | 83K | Zimmerman | 515 |
| CH Switzerland | #18 | 13,808as Zimmermann | 1 in 609 | 14K | Zimmermann | 136 |
| GB United Kingdom | #700 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.2K | 494 | Zimmerman | 134 |
| CA Canada | #400 | ≈8,200 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | — | Zimmerman | 181 |
| AT Austria | #122 | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Zimmermann | 104 |
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); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
- Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermanb. 1785FRFrench pianist
- Matt Zimmermanb. 1934CACanadian actor (1934–2022)
- Bob Dylanb. 1941USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer-songwriter (born 1941)
- Dean Zimmermanb. 1950USAmerican philosopher (1950-)
- Bruce Zimmermanb. 1952USAmerican writer
- Paulus Johannes Zimmermanb. 1958NLHong Kong politician
- John Zimmermanb. 1973USAmerican figure skater
- deadmau5b. 1981CAnot in their usual nameCanadian electronic dance music producer (born 1981)
- Joey Zimmermanb. 1986USAmerican actor
- Walker Zimmermanb. 1993USAmerican soccer player
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 33 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 83K | #379 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 82K | #382 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 81K | #350 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 494 | #11,469 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 16 | #43,070 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
- 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
- What does the name Zimmerman mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Carpenter’, from MHG zimbermann, literally ‘timber-man’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Zimmerman?
- A machine transcription gives /zɪmɚmən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Zimmerman have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 275 thousand people named Zimmerman in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zimmerman.
- Where is Zimmerman most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Zimmerman is densest in the United States — about 1 in 4.0 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Zimmerman?
- In the United States, the national register counted 83,265 people named Zimmerman in 2010, about 1 in 4.0 thousand residents.
- How common is Zimmerman compared with other names?
- In Switzerland, Zimmerman is the 18th most common surname of 127,759 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Zimmerman?
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/zimmermanThe 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, “Zimmerman” — the 18th most common surname in Switzerland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.