Wanger
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Wanger is a surname, most frequently recorded in Germany. In Liechtenstein it is the 41st most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from Wangen / -wang / Wange, i.e.
- USUnited States1 in 603K◐
- LILiechtenstein1 in 233
- ATAustria1 in 54K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈689 ●
- Sources
- 151 ●
- 1 in 77K ◐
across 7 countries
6.6K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Meaning & origin●
Toponymic surname from Wangen / -wang / Wange, i.e. a settlement or landscape-feature name. Bearer count: 1737.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested in 1 language 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 | — | 738 | 656 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 59 |
| US United States | — | 552 | 4.7K rec. | 1 in 603K | 638 | Wanger | 151 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 301 | 294 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 22 |
| LI Liechtenstein | #41 | 256 | 5 rec. | — | 108 | Wanger | 14 |
| NG Nigeria | — | 148 | 215 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 15 |
| CA Canada | — | 147 | 145 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 17 |
| AT Austria | — | 119 | 75 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 27 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 109△ | 46 rec. | 1 in 77K | 109 | Wanger | 19 |
| AU Australia | — | 98 | 98 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 9 |
| CD Congo - Kinshasa | — | 35 | 35 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 1 |
| IT Italy | — | 24 | 26 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 2 |
| RU Russia | — | 22 | 22 rec. | — | — | Wanger | 5 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English5.8K63%
- German1.7K19%
- 4575%
- Spanish3974%
- French1672%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 5,793 | 63% |
| German | 1,734 | 19% |
| 457 | 5% | |
| Spanish | 397 | 4% |
| French | 167 | 2% |
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●
Wanger is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Toponymic surname? Uncertain; may be a metathesized form of Wagner. 230 tokens, scattered in western Germany.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In English, A rest or cushion for the cheek; a pillow.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, from Wang; also as a variant of Wagner
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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.
Notable people with this name●
- Irving Price Wangerb. 1852USAmerican politician (1852-1940)
- Walter Wangerb. 1894USAmerican film producer (1894-1968)
- Justine Johnstoneb. 1895USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and medical researcher (1895-1982)
- Armin Wangerb. 1920CH(1920-2010)
- Baruch Wengerb. 1930ILnot in their usual nameIsraeli politician
- Klaus Wangerb. 1941LILiechtensteiner politician
- Mats Ögren Wangerb. 1969SESwedish journalist
- Ben Wangerb. 1997USAmerican-Israeli baseball player
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 17 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 638 | #33,690 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 552 | #39,773 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 544 | #42,858 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 217 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 208 | #23,978 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1990 | 167 | — |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 110 | #17,526 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1980 | 110 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 109 | #10,301 |
| LI Liechtenstein | Statistik Liechtenstein — Familiennamenstatistik (surnames) | 2020 | 108 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 81 | #39,952 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 1970 | 70 | — |
Reference works 1
- 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 · 35 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Wanger?
- We estimate roughly 689 people bear Wanger (counting its spellings and scripts) across 7 countries in our records.
- In which country does Wanger have the most bearers?
- Wanger is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled wanger.
- How common is Wanger compared with other names?
- In Liechtenstein, Wanger is the 41st most common surname of 657 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Wanger mean?
- Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from Wangen / -wang / Wange, i.e.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/wangerThe 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, “Wanger” — the 41st most common surname in Liechtenstein. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.