Kaufmann

surname · German · Latin script

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

Kaufmann is a surname, most frequently recorded in Germany. In Liechtenstein it is the 24th most common surname. It appears chiefly in German and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: As a shopkeeper, or from Jakob, Yakovmann and Kofmann.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 831◐
  • ATAustria1 in 1.6K
  • DEGermany1 in 2.5K

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

≈50K ●

across 14 countries

4 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
373 ●

283K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 831 ◐

Switzerland

Spellings & scripts●

CoffmanLatin · English●228K records
คอฟแมนThai · Thai●22 records
카우프만Hangul · Korean●0 records
ΚάουφμανGreek · Greek●0 records

Locally spelled Coffman in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada and 12 more and Kaufman in TH Thailand, GR Greece.

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●

As a shopkeeper, or from Jakob, Yakovmann and Kofmann.

Sources 1

  • The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Kaufmann is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#11744,39840K rec.——Kaufmann196
US United States—34,844208K rec.1 in 9.5K35KCoffman373
CH Switzerland#3010,115△1.8K rec.1 in 83110KKaufmann113
GB United Kingdom—7,8377.7K rec.——Coffman54
AT Austria#604,0082.5K rec.——Kaufmann105
CA Canada—3,8623.8K rec.——Coffman40
AU Australia—2,3822.4K rec.——Coffman35
BR Brazil—2,1980 rec.1 in 96K2.2K—1
IT Italy—1,1921.3K rec.——Coffman35
AR Argentina—8910 rec.1 in 51K891—1
SG Singapore#862746758 rec.——Coffman12
RU Russia—651693 rec.——Coffman12

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

Languages●

  • German80K45%
  • English60K34%
  • Spanish9.8K5%
  • French6.9K4%
  • Portuguese5.8K3%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
German79,77845%
English59,96834%
Spanish9,8345%
French6,8664%
Portuguese5,8383%

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◐

Kaufmann is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Russian surname700 records spelled Kaufmann54 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Poland, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Ukrainian

    Also written Кауфман, Kaufman, Кауфманн, Kauffman, KofMAN

49 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●

Kaufmann 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.

  • occupational name for a merchant or wholesaler (see Kaufer).

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In German, merchant, businessman, trader (male or of unspecified gender)

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

  • In German, Berufsname zu mhd. kauffman 'Kaufmann, Händler'; 13.941 Namensträger. Plate zeigt die Schreibvariante mit -au- gegenüber Koopmann.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus

  • In German, Zu ahd. koufman 'Kaufmann'; der Berufsname überwiegt heute stark. 13059 Bearer/Belege; sehr häufig in Dtld.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In German, Berufsname zu „Kaufmann“; zeigt die p/f(f)-Varianz in der Schreibung Kauff-/Kauf-. In Luxemburg: Kauffman(n) 241+4, Kaufmann 207; Schweiz: Kaufmann 5045, Kauffmann 59; Österreich: Kaufmann 2859, Kauffmann 11.

    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.

Over time●

05010015020019001920194019601980177 · 1951

Show as table
Kaufmann in INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000), France, 1891–1991
Yearrecords
189194
1901116
1911125
1921122
193195
1941173
1951177
1961156
1971165
1981135
1991131

FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

18001850190019502000Konstantin von Kaufman, b. 1818Isidor Kaufmann, b. 1853Yehezkel Kaufmann, b. 1889Felix Kaufmann, b. 1895Karl Kaufmann, b. 1900Walter Kaufmann, b. 1921Carl Kaufmann, b. 1936Christine Kaufmann, b. 1945Günther Kaufmann, b. 1947Jonas Kaufmann, b. 1969

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 33 sources across 19 countries.

Official registers attesting Kaufmann
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
CH SwitzerlandBFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames)202410K#29
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020106.8K#5,133
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020206.7K#5,042
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020006.7K#4,834
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—2.2K#4,475
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—891—
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—351#1,308
LI LiechtensteinStatistik Liechtenstein — Familiennamenstatistik (surnames)2020191—
NL NetherlandsCBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007)2007181#11,450
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1951177—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1941173—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)1971165—

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • 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)
  • Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary

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

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 54 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Kaufmann?
We estimate roughly 50 thousand people bear Kaufmann (counting its spellings and scripts) across 14 countries in our records.
In which country does Kaufmann have the most bearers?
Kaufmann is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled kaufmann.
How common is Kaufmann compared with other names?
In Germany, Kaufmann is the 117th most common surname of 734,811 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Kaufmann mean?
Recorded meaning: As a shopkeeper, or from Jakob, Yakovmann and Kofmann.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kaufmann

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, “Kaufmann” — the 117th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Kaufmann parses inside a full name →