Landwehr
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A segment of the armed forces of Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, often made up of older people, used for defense of the homeland (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 13 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
/ˈlɑːntveɪɹ/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Landwehr is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- CACanada
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
How to pronounce Landwehr
- English:/ˈlɑːntveɪɹ/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Toponymic surname from a residence at a Landwehr (fortified boundary/defensive earthwork with hedges); from Ahd. landwerī, mhd. lantwer, mnd. lantwer(e) 'Landesverteidigung', later 'Befestigungswerk im Gelände'.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How Landwehr is read
(measured from records)Landwehr is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English64%
A segment of the armed forces of Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, often made up of older people, used for defense of the homeland.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German27%
Toponymic surname from a residence at a Landwehr (fortified boundary/defensive earthwork with hedges); from Ahd. landwerī, mhd. lantwer, mnd. lantwer(e) 'Landesverteidigung', later 'Befestigungswerk im Gelände'.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Toponymic surname from Landwehr, i.e. a boundary fortification/earthwork or related dwelling-place name. Bearer count: 2360.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
from a Germanic personal name, Lantwer, composed of the elements lant ‘land’ -i- wer ‘defender’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Toponymischer Herkunfts-/Wohnstättenname zu Landwehr 'Hecke, Barriere, Zaun, eingehegtes Land'; Varianten Lanwer-/Lanver-.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
evtl. Patronym zu Rufname Landwart; 2085 Belege
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Ludwig Landwehrb. 1897DEGerman politician (1897-1981)
- Gordian Landwehrb. 1912DEGerman priest and theologian (1912–1998)
- Mathis Landwehrb. 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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)21 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 13 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Landwehr come from?
- Toponymic surname from a residence at a Landwehr (fortified boundary/defensive earthwork with hedges); from Ahd. landwerī, mhd. lantwer, mnd. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- How do you pronounce Landwehr?
- In English /ˈlɑːntveɪɹ/ (Wiktionary).
- What does the name Landwehr mean?
- In English, A segment of the armed forces of Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, often made up of older people, used for defense of the homeland.
- In which country does Landwehr have the most bearers?
- Landwehr is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Landwehr?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/landwehrThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
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, “Landwehr”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.