Roelf
given name · Western Frisian · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Roelf is a given name, most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is the 80th most common given name. It appears chiefly in Western Frisian and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung.
- SESweden1 in 234◐
- DEGermany1 in 425
- CHSwitzerland1 in 439
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈66K ●
- 2 ●
- Sources
- 266 ●
- 1 in 234 ◐
across 11 countries
recorded for this name
378K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Rolf in DE Germany, US United States, SE Sweden and 21 more, Рольф in RU Russia, UA Ukraine and Rol'F in LV Latvia.
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●
Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung. Karte zeigt oe-Variante gegenüber o/oh/ö; 5 Types, 143 Tokens.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #80 | 285,716 | 262K rec. | — | — | Rolf | 220 |
| SE Sweden | #117 | 43,582△ | 6.4K rec. | 1 in 234 | 44K | Rolf | 106 |
| CH Switzerland | #24 | 17,843 | 6.7K rec. | — | 10 | Rolf | 124 |
| NO Norway | #121 | 10,536 | 6.2K rec. | 1 in 519 | 29K | Rolf | 101 |
| NL Netherlands | #535 | 3,949 | 4.2K rec. | 1 in 4.4K | 3.9K | Roelf | 96 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 3,730 | 4.1K rec. | — | 3 | Rolf | 87 |
| US United States | — | 3,376 | 67K rec. | 1 in 99K | 4.5K | Rolf | 266 |
| AU Australia | — | 3,279 | 3.2K rec. | — | 3 | Rolf | 108 |
| CA Canada | — | 2,214 | 2.6K rec. | — | — | Rolf | 77 |
| FI Finland | #685 | 1,803△ | 295 rec. | 1 in 3.1K | 4.5K | Rolf | 26 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 1,528 | 2K rec. | — | — | Rolf | 39 |
| DK Denmark | #419 | 1,417 | 741 rec. | 1 in 4.1K | 1.4K | Rolf | 110 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- Western Frisian6.5K38%
- English4.8K28%
- Dutch4.8K28%
- German5303%
- Swahili901%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Western Frisian | 6,469 | 38% |
| English | 4,816 | 28% |
| Dutch | 4,815 | 28% |
| German | 530 | 3% |
| Swahili | 90 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Notable people with this name●
- Roelf Meijerb. 1827NLDutch organ maker (1827-1884)
- Roelf Takensb. 1862NLpainter and printmaker
- Roelf Heyenb. 1938DEGerman politician (1938-1975)
- Roel Dijkhuisb. 1943NLnot in their usual nameDutch journalist and editor-in-chief (1943–2020)
- Roelf Meyerb. 1947ZASouth African politician
- Roelf de Boerb. 1949NLDutch former politician
- Roelf T. te Veldeb. 1974NLacademic
- Roelf Pienaarb. 1993ZASouth African athletics competitor
- Roelf MulderNLDutch police officer
- Pieter R. RoelfsemaNLnot in their usual namecognitive scientist
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 11 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 3.9K | #449 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 2.5K | #1,192 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 7 | #27,806 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 4 | #7,729 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — births 1922–2015 (Kaggle mirror) | 1950 | 2 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 1957 | 1 | — |
| CL Chile | SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021) | 1952 | 1 | — |
| UY Uruguay | Montevideo Open Data — Nombres por año y sexo (1940–2012) | 1959 | 1 | — |
| FR France | Dictionary of French Prénoms (Benoist, 2009) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name 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 · 9 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Roelf?
- We estimate roughly 66 thousand people bear Roelf (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
- In which country does Roelf have the most bearers?
- Roelf is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled rolf.
- Where is Roelf most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Roelf is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 234 people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Roelf compared with other names?
- In Germany, Roelf is the 80th most common given name of 154,506 given names recorded there.
- Is Roelf a male or female name?
- Roelf is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Roelf mean?
- Recorded meaning: Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/roelfThe 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
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, “Roelf” — the 80th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.