Beer

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Beer is a surname, most frequently recorded in Indonesia. It appears chiefly in English and Hindi, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: either person from Beer/Beere/Bere, an English place-name, or from a nickname meaning bear.

rarermore common
  • IDIndonesia1 in 987◐
  • ZASouth Africa1 in 2.8K
  • TRTürkiye1 in 3.1K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈65K ●

across 14 countries

5 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
323 ●

426K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 3.3K ◐

Switzerland

Spellings & scripts●

BaruLatin · Indonesian●105K records
বরBengali · Bangla●4.4K records
ବିରOdia · Odia●52 records
เบอะThai · Thai●25 records
ప్రTelugu · Telugu●0 records

7 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Bir in SY Syria, DZ Algeria, MA Morocco and 1 more, Baru in ID Indonesia, VN Vietnam, Bor in TR Türkiye, PL Poland and Bari in IN India.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

either person from Beer/Beere/Bere, an English place-name, or from a nickname meaning bear

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Beer is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
ID Indonesia—105,054447 rec.—listedBaru71
TR Türkiye—44,64716K rec.——Bor48
IN India—41,715310K rec.1 in 32K42KBari127
ZA South Africa#21910,87811K rec.——Beer99
GB United Kingdom—9,4608.8K rec.—7Beer169
US United States—8,25257K rec.1 in 40K9KBeer323
AU Australia—7,9028.1K rec.—2Beer142
BR Brazil—3,059△9 rec.1 in 69K3.1K—4
CH Switzerland—2,572△346 rec.1 in 3.3K2.6KBeer50
AR Argentina—2,378△1 rec.1 in 19K2.4K—2
ES Spain—2,328△341 rec.1 in 21K15KBru30
CA Canada—2,1112.5K rec.—5Beer94

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English80K39%
  • Hindi43K21%
  • German31K15%
  • 7K3%
  • Dutch6.3K3%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English79,53139%
Hindi43,00921%
German30,84215%
6,9503%
Dutch6,2573%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Beer is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German surname34K records spelled Beer3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Switzerland, United States, Austria

    Also written Béer, Beèr

  • a separate surname22K records spelled Beer4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, South Africa, United Kingdom

    Also written Béer, Beër, Beér

  • Spanish surname8.2K records spelled Beer5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, South Africa, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Bêer, Beér

  • Russian surname4.9K records spelled Beer45 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Poland, Czechia, Kazakhstan

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Czech

    Also written Бир, Беер, Бер, Беэр, Ber

67 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Beer 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.

  • It exists in about 20 towns, very common as a Jewish family name since the Middle Ages, but some cases of origin are not sure.

    as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

  • In English, An alcoholic drink fermented from starch material, commonly barley malt; often with hops or some other substance (like gruit) to impart a bitter flavor.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, obsolete form of Beere

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Patronymisch zu germ. Rufname Ber(o) < Bernhard; Belegzahl: 6241. Im Raum auch Konkurrenz zu Bär-/Eber- und zu mnd. bēr 'Bier'.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

  • In German, Familienname zu Rufname Bernhard; Kurzform/Abkürzung. Bearer count: 93 Tokens (PLZ 924 Schwandorf), 37 (927 Schirmitz), 52 (925 Nabburg), 185 (931 Burglengenfeld), 96 (956 Marktredwitz).

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

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.

Over time●

0200400600800190019502000741 · 1974

Show as table
Beer in naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls), India, 1896–2017
Yearrecords
18961
19101
19142
19151
19162
19174
19187
19195
19203
19216
192214
19236
192415
192513
192612
192720
192821
192930
193029
193124
193242
193336
193469
193548
193657
193771
193869
1939102
1940102
1941103
1942139
1943119
1944173
1945144
1946188
1947239
1948203
1949209
1950259
1951235
1952352
1953267
1954401
1955331
1956369
1957400
1958463
1959506
1960449
1961469
1962617
1963480
1964620
1965558
1966624
1967718
1968614
1969660
1970606
1971614
1972689
1973665
1974741
1975645
1976651
1977566
1978560
1979592
1980570
1981643
1982663
1983659
1984681
1985648
1986615
1987626
1988656
1989600
1990584
1991604
1992603
1993626
1994557
1995478
1996277
1997241
1998114
199912
20022
20071
200831
20094
201031
201136
201222
201337
201490
201543
20161
20171

IN naampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls) — 100 years between 1896–2017. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1700180019002000Wilhelm Beer, b. 1797August Beer, b. 1825George Louis Beer, b. 1872Edith Hahn Beer, b. 1914Jacqueline Beer, b. 1932Erich Beer, b. 1946Nicola Beer, b. 1970Eli Beer, b. 1973Paula Beer, b. 1995Madison Beer, b. 1999

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).

Evidence●

Attested in 40 sources across 24 countries.

Official registers attesting Beer
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
IN IndiaInstate — India surnames by state (real counts) from electoral rolls—31K#34
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020105.9K#5,829
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020205.8K#5,721
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020005.7K#5,554
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)20242.3K#395
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1974741—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1967718—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1972689—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1984681—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1973665—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1982663—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)1969660—

Reference works 4

  • 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)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 269 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Beer?
We estimate roughly 65 thousand people bear Beer (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
In which country does Beer have the most bearers?
Beer is most frequently recorded in Indonesia, where it is most often spelled baru.
How common is Beer compared with other names?
In South Africa, Beer is the 219th most common surname of 302,267 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Beer mean?
Recorded meaning: either person from Beer/Beere/Bere, an English place-name, or from a nickname meaning bear
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/beer

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Beer” — the 219th most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Beer parses inside a full name →