Schar

surname · German · Latin script

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

Schar is a surname, most frequently recorded in Switzerland. It appears chiefly in German and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from OHG scara 'troop, band' or scar 'sharp weapon, scythe'.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 1.5K◐
  • CACanada1 in 24K
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 27K

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

≈729 ●

across 1 country

Sources
231 ●

169K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 456K ◐

United States

Spellings & scripts●

SharLatin · English●132K records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Shar in US United States, GB United Kingdom, CA Canada and 11 more, Shaer in EG Egypt, SY Syria, IL Israel and 5 more, Schaer in DE Germany, UA Ukraine, RU Russia and Zhar in MA Morocco, BE Belgium.

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●

from OHG scara 'troop, band' or scar 'sharp weapon, scythe'

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

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

Where Schar is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CH Switzerland15,5201.1K rec.—6.3KSchar58
GB United Kingdom7,7267.9K rec.——Shar62
CA Canada3,4213.5K rec.——Shar51
AU Australia2,8703K rec.—1Shar57
DE Germany2,5672.4K rec.——Schaer62
IT Italy1,1871.2K rec.——Shar7
EG Egypt842227 rec.——Shaer54
US United States729134K rec.1 in 456K790Shar231
PH Philippines599600 rec.——Shar17
IN India543558 rec.—38Shar35
SY Syria512568 rec.——Shaer9
AR Argentina511377 rec.—108Schar19

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

Languages●

  • German14K68%
  • English4.1K20%
  • Spanish7114%
  • French4482%
  • Chinese2421%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
German13,57668%
English4,05820%
Spanish7114%
French4482%
Chinese2421%

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◐

Schar is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname459 records spelled Schar2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Switzerland, United States, Belgium

    Also written Schär

  • a separate surname144 records spelled Schar3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Switzerland, India

    Also written Schär, Schár

32 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●

Schar is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, troop

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

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●

051015201900192019401960198019 · 1921

Show as table
Schar in INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000), France, 1891–1991
Yearrecords
18912
19016
191112
192119
193111
19413
19517
196114
19716
19814
19919

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●

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 10 sources across 5 countries.

Official registers attesting Schar
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020466#48,879
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010436#48,436
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000423#47,210
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national)—39—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)192119—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)196114—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)191112—
ES SpainINE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos)—11#114,632
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)193111—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19919—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19517—
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000)19716—

Reference works 2

  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • 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 · 19 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Schar?
We estimate roughly 729 people bear Schar (counting its spellings and scripts) across 1 country in our records.
In which country does Schar have the most bearers?
Schar is most frequently recorded in Switzerland, where it is most often spelled schar.
What does the name Schar mean?
Recorded meaning: from OHG scara 'troop, band' or scar 'sharp weapon, scythe'
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/schar

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, “Schar”. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Schar parses inside a full name →