Zöllner
surname · Latin script
Meaning: occupational name for a customs officer or toll collector
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/tsœlnɐ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Zöllner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 17K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 465K
- ATAustria≈1 in 56K
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
- 154 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 17K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Zollner in US United States, AT Austria, IT Italy and 3 more.
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)
occupational name for a customs officer or toll collector
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Zöllner 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 | ≈4,600 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Zöllner | 90 |
| US United States | 716 | 1 in 465K | 755 | Zollner | 154 |
| BR Brazil | 203 | 1 in 1M | 203 | — | — |
| AT Austria | ≈160 est. | ≈1 in 56K | — | Zollner | 27 |
| IT Italy | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 493K | — | Zollner | 2 |
| CH Switzerland | 54 | 1 in 156K | 54 | Zollner | 9 |
| IE Ireland | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 167K | — | Zollner | 1 |
| BZ Belize | ≈2 est. | ≈1 in 178K | — | Zollner | 1 |
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; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); 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).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Zöllner is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, occupation: customs officer/toll collector
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, customs officer
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Berufsname 'Zollner/Zöllner' (Zollbeamter, lat. thelonearius); die Platte zeigt T/Z-Anlautvariation mit Zol-/Zöll-/Tol-/Thol-/Czol-.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. zoller/zolner, mnd. tolner 'Zöllner, Zolleinnehmer'; Karte zeigt o/ö-Variation. 2 Typen/2776 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufs- und Wohnstättenname zu Zoll(n)er/Töll(n)er; zeigt Zöll(n)er, Zoll(n)er, Zoell(n)er, Z(o/ö)llmann, Zollweg, Zollstab.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
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)
- Carl Heinrich Zöllnerb. 1792DEGerman composer (1792-1836)
- Carl Friedrich Zöllnerb. 1800DEGerman composer (1800–1860)
- Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllnerb. 1834DEGerman astrophysicist (1834–1882)
- Heinrich Zöllnerb. 1854DEGerman composer and conductor (1854–1941)
- Erich Zöllnerb. 1916ATAustrian historian and university educator (1916–1996)
- Jürgen Zöllnerb. 1945DEGerman politician
- Frank Zöllnerb. 1956DEGerman art historian
- Jacob Zöllnerb. 1956DEGerman sculptor
- Reinhard Zöllnerb. 1961DEGerman historian
- Kirsten Zöllnerb. 1981DEGerman basketball player (born 1981)
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 15 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 54 | #17,560 |
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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Zöllner mean, and where does it come from?
- occupational name for a customs officer or toll collector Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Zöllner?
- A machine transcription gives /tsœlnɐ/ (IPA) for German.
- What are other forms of the name Zöllner?
- In the etymology graph, Zoll is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Zöllner have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.6 thousand people named Zöllner in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled zöllner.
- How common is the name Zöllner?
- In the United States, the national register counted 716 people named Zöllner in 2010, about 1 in 465 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Zöllner?
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/z%C3%B6llnerThe 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, “Zöllner”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.