Volker
given name · German · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Volker is a given name, most frequently recorded in Germany. It appears chiefly in German and English, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a male given name from Old High German.
- DEGermany1 in 471◐
- ATAustria1 in 9.4K
- PLPoland1 in 286K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈1.2K ●
- Sources
- 240 ●
- 1 in 67K ◐
across 10 countries
262K records
Official registry-verified
Sweden
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Völker in NO Norway, SE Sweden, TR Türkiye.
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●
a male given name from Old High German
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 14 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 | #102 | 256,203 | 229K rec. | — | 1 | Volker | 240 |
| AT Austria | #953 | 1,588 | 747 rec. | — | 82 | Volker | 86 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 878 | 1.4K rec. | — | — | Volker | 57 |
| CH Switzerland | #854 | 743 | 486 rec. | — | 111 | Volker | 54 |
| AU Australia | — | 743 | 1.4K rec. | — | 1 | Volker | 68 |
| US United States | — | 559 | 23K rec. | 1 in 595K | 2.5K | Volker | 226 |
| CA Canada | — | 342 | 665 rec. | — | — | Volker | 43 |
| BE Belgium | — | 233 | 234 rec. | — | 8 | Volker | 27 |
| SE Sweden | — | 152△ | 60 rec. | 1 in 67K | 152 | Völker | 24 |
| ZA South Africa | — | 149 | 454 rec. | — | — | Volker | 28 |
| PL Poland | — | 134 | 1.6K rec. | 1 in 286K | 134 | Volker | 1 |
| ES Spain | — | 128 | 790 rec. | 1 in 391K | 130 | Volker | 47 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- German253K94%
- English5.9K2%
- Spanish1.4K1%
- French1.2K1%
- Portuguese7451%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| German | 253,274 | 94% |
| English | 5,916 | 2% |
| Spanish | 1,418 | 1% |
| French | 1,224 | 1% |
| Portuguese | 745 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Volker 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, Patronymischer Familienname aus ahd. folc, altsächs. folk 'Heerschar, Volk'; Kurzformen der Volk-/Folc-Gruppe.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, Gutturaler Plosiv; Schreibvarianten zu Volker/Volkers, wohl mit -k/-g bzw. -ck-Variation; 731 Tokens, 5 Types.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Patronym zum Rufnamen Volker; Nebenformen mit Umlaut und ll-Assimilation. Bearerzahl: 731.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, ) Folker; Volkher: alter deutscher männl. Vom. (ahd. folc »Haufe, Kriegsschar,
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In English, German; ‘people’s defender’.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1999 | 55 |
| 2000 | 59 |
| 2001 | 61 |
| 2002 | 66 |
| 2003 | 67 |
| 2004 | 73 |
| 2005 | 74 |
| 2006 | 82 |
| 2007 | 94 |
| 2008 | 95 |
| 2009 | 93 |
| 2010 | 96 |
| 2011 | 95 |
| 2012 | 96 |
| 2013 | 95 |
| 2014 | 95 |
| 2015 | 95 |
| 2016 | 100 |
| 2017 | 103 |
| 2018 | 98 |
| 2019 | 97 |
| 2020 | 98 |
SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Volker Strassenb. 1936DEGerman mathematician and algorithms researcher (b.1936)
- Volker Schlöndorffb. 1939DEGerman film director, screenwriter and film producer (born 1939)
- Volker Spenglerb. 1939DEGerman actor (1939-2020)
- Volker Braunb. 1939DEGerman writer
- Volker Finkeb. 1948DEGerman association football player and manager
- Volker Wiekerb. 1954DEGerman general
- Volker Türkb. 1965ATUnited Nations human rights chief
- Hauschkab. 1966DEnot in their usual nameGerman composer and pianist (born 1966)
- Volker Wissingb. 1970DEGerman politician, former Federal Minister for Digital and former Transport, former Federal Minister of Justice, former MP
- Volker Bruchb. 1980DEGerman actor
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 52 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.5K | #12,540 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.1K | #13,333 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.8K | #15,363 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 559 | #19,105 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 392 | — |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 380 | #5,317 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 225 | #33,362 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 216 | #3,340 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 160 | #5,604 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 152 | #6,386 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 134 | #1,703 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 131 | #1,623 |
Reference works 5
- 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 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 · 165 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Volker?
- We estimate roughly 1.2 thousand people bear Volker (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
- In which country does Volker have the most bearers?
- Volker is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled volker.
- How common is Volker compared with other names?
- In Germany, Volker is the 102nd most common given name of 154,506 given names recorded there.
- Is Volker a male or female name?
- Volker 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 Volker mean?
- Recorded meaning: a male given name from Old High German
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/volkerThe 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, “Volker” — the 102nd most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.