Spiegel
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in German: from MHG spiegel 'mirror'; also from Lat. specula 'watchtower', often in place names
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 18 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈspiɡəɫ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Spiegel is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- ILIsrael1 in 5.2Kas שפיגל(measured from records)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 26K
- USUnited States1 in 52K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Spiegel itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 73 (measured from records)
- 1 in 26K (inferred from the name graph)
6,338 people, 2010
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled שפיגל in IL Israel, RO Romania, HU Hungary.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)From the Judengasse of Frankfort since 1776 and in the Under Rhine district in the north of Baden. Spiegel = mirror. Is the US short form.
Cited for this meaning 1
- The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.
How Spiegel is read
(measured from records)Spiegel 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.
- English71%
maker or seller of mirrors, from Middle High German spiegel ‘mirror’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
- German13%
from MHG spiegel 'mirror'; also from Lat. specula 'watchtower', often in place names.
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
occupational name for a glazier; from mirror or glass pane
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
mirror
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
mirror (smooth surface, usually made of glass with reflective material painted on the underside, that reflects light)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)Spiegel 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 6,338 | 1 in 52K | 6.3K | Spiegel | 73 |
| IL Israel | #585 | 1,680as שפיגל | 1 in 5.2K | 1.7K | שפיגל | 38 |
| RO Romania | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | שפיגל | 2 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 327 | 1 in 26K | 327 | — | 3 |
| HU Hungary | — | ≈310 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | שפיגל | 3 |
| LV Latvia | — | ≈73 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Spiegel | 3 |
6,338 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: CBS Israel — Family names in Israel, 2017 ("שמות משפחה בישראל 2017"); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)Spiegel 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.
From the Judengasse of Frankfort since 1776 and in the Under Rhine district in the north of Baden. Spiegel = mirror. Is the US short form.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
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)- Friedrich von Spiegelb. 1820DEGerman orientalist (1820-1905)
- Sam Spiegelb. 1901USAmerican film producer (1901–1985)
- Edward Spiegelb. 1932USAmerican physicist
- Paul Spiegelb. 1937DEGerman politician (1937-2006)
- Scott Spiegelb. 1957USAmerican film director (1957–2025)
- Spike Jonzeb. 1969USnot in their usual nameAmerican filmmaker (born 1969)
- Ryan Spiegelb. 1978USAmerican politician
- Anne Spiegelb. 1980DEGerman politician and Federal Minister of Family Affairs
- Evan Spiegelb. 1990USAmerican businessman (born 1990)
- Raphael Spiegelb. 1992CHSwiss footballer
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)31 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.3K | #5,488 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.3K | #5,123 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.1K | #5,494 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 327 | #4,028 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Spiegel come from?
- From the Judengasse of Frankfort since 1776 and in the Under Rhine district in the north of Baden. Spiegel = mirror. Is the US short form. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
- How do you pronounce Spiegel?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈspiɡəɫ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Spiegel mean?
- In German, from MHG spiegel 'mirror'; also from Lat. specula 'watchtower', often in place names.
- In which country does Spiegel have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 6.3 thousand people named Spiegel, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled spiegel.
- Where is Spiegel most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Spiegel is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 26 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Spiegel?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,338 people named Spiegel in 2010, about 1 in 52 thousand residents.
- How common is Spiegel compared with other names?
- In Israel, Spiegel is the 585th most common surname of 325,634 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Spiegel?
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/spiegelThe 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, “Spiegel” — the 585th most common surname in Israel. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.