Schwalbe
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: The World War II Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈʃwɔɫb/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Schwalbe is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 370K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 31K
- BZBelize≈1 in 75K
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
- 198 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 31K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from mhd. swalbe ‘swallow’; also linked to dialect words for ‘swallow’
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
How Schwalbe is read(measured from records)
Schwalbe 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.
- English57%
The World War II Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German30%
from mhd. swalbe ‘swallow’; also linked to dialect words for ‘swallow’
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
swallow, martin (small, migratory bird of the Hirundinidae family)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
mhd. swal | e, we, be, schwäb. und Schweiz, schwalm (x ahd. swalm "Wasserschhmd"), nd. swalke. Schwal|b(e), e(n), wen, m(e), er, k(e); Schwakenberg; Rauch- schwalbe
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Schwalbe 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 31K | listed | — | 2 |
| US United States | 899 | 1 in 370K | 915 | Schwalbe | 198 |
| GH Ghana | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 115K | — | Schwalbe | 2 |
| BR Brazil | 213 | 1 in 994K | 213 | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 623K | 47 | Schwalbe | 33 |
| DK Denmark | 51 | 1 in 115K | 51 | — | — |
| FI Finland | ≈48 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | Schwalbe | 1 |
| BZ Belize | ≈5 est. | ≈1 in 75K | — | Schwalbe | 1 |
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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); the deutsche-namenkunde-gottschald-1982 register. 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)
Schwalbe 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 Dutch, dive, a deliberate fall to gain advantage in the game
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Abraham Schwalbeb. 1553DEphysician (1553-1606)
- Gustav Schwalbeb. 1844DEGerman anatomist and anthropologist (1844–1916)
- Julius Schwalbeb. 1863DEGerman physician
- Ernst Schwalbeb. 1871DEpathologist and university teacher (1871-1920)
- Hans Schwalbeb. 1910DEGerman embassy employee to Japan, 1860-1973. University lecturer at Matsue in rural Japan.
- Ole Schwalbeb. 1929DKDanish painter (1929-1990)
- Mary Anne Schwalbeb. 1934USAmerican university administrator and refugee worker
- Ingeborg Schwalbeb. 1935DEGerman athletics competitor
- Lydia Icke-Schwalbeb. 1941DEethnologist (1941-)
- Harald Schwalbeb. 1966DEGerman chemist
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 21 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 915 | #25,398 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 899 | #26,975 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 848 | #29,648 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 213 | #34,903 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 51 | #10,357 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 47 | #52,803 |
| DE Germany | Deutsche Namenkunde (Gottschald, 1982) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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
- Where does the name Schwalbe come from?
- from mhd. swalbe ‘swallow’; also linked to dialect words for ‘swallow’ Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Schwalbe?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈʃwɔɫb/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Schwalbe mean?
- In English, The World War II Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter.
- What are other forms of the name Schwalbe?
- In the etymology graph, Swallow is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Schwalbe have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.6 thousand people named Schwalbe in Germany, more than in any other country we hold.
- How common is the name Schwalbe?
- In the United States, the national register counted 899 people named Schwalbe in 2010, about 1 in 370 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Schwalbe?
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/schwalbeThe 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, “Schwalbe”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.