Merke
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/mɝk/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Merke is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. Recorded meaning: inexpensive, cheap.
- DEGermany≈1 in 253K(inferred from the name graph)
- ARArgentina1 in 455K
- CACanada≈1 in 529K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 68 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 253K (inferred from the name graph)
≈320 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
inexpensive, cheap
Sources 1
- Trask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
Where in the world(measured from records)
Merke counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: the us-wru-surnames-voterfile register; RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Merke is also recorded in 6 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Dutch, singular present subjunctive of merken
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Nynorsk, a mark, a sign
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Norwegian Bokmål, a mark
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, cheap
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Basque, inexpensive, cheap
as a wordTrask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft)
In Basque, Agur Erregina / guztiz berregina. / Gabrielen hitzaz / behar nola trazaz, / iguzu bakea / Ebaren merkea . "Sumens illud Ave / Gabrielis ore, / funda nos in pace, / mutans Evae nomen" . (Ave Maris Stella) Hm 160 (Interpr? Tal vez var. de marka, merka ) .
as a wordOrotariko Euskal Hiztegia (OEH) — General/Historical Basque Dictionary, Euskaltzaindia
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(measured from records)
- Henri Merkeb. 1750CHengraver, specialist in aquatint, worked in London 1800-1820; printmaker; Swiss; British
- Franz Merkeb. 1893CHSwiss surgeon (1893-1975)
- Helmut Merkeb. 1919DEGerman politician (1919-1988)
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)
Attested in 15 sources across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 100 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 20 | #194,891 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 10 | #41,493 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Merke mean, and where does it come from?
- inexpensive, cheap Recorded by Trask, Etymological Dictionary of Basque (2008 posthumous draft).
- How do you pronounce Merke?
- A machine transcription gives /mɝk/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Merke have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 317 people named Merke in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled merke.
- How common is the name Merke?
- In Argentina, the national register counted 100 people named Merke, about 1 in 455 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Merke?
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/merkeThe 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, “Merke”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.