Kramer
surname · Latin script
Meaning: In the district of Under Rhine, Baden 1809
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kramer is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Germany it is the 19th most common surname.
- NLNetherlands1 in 1.3K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 2K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 3.8K
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 Kramer 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #829 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 490 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈290,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Kremer in LU Luxembourg, CN China.
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)
In the district of Under Rhine, Baden 1809.
Sources 1
- The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kramer 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | — | Kremer | 15 |
| US United States | #263 | 63,936 | 1 in 5.2K | 64K | Kramer | 490 |
| DE Germany | #19 | ≈39,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Kramer | 223 |
| NL Netherlands | #33 | 13,188 | 1 in 1.3K | 13K | Kramer | 122 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈9,700 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Kramer | 12 |
| CH Switzerland | #304 | 2,237 | 1 in 3.8K | 2.2K | Kramer | 71 |
| LU Luxembourg | #207 | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 2K | 1.6K | Kremer | 27 |
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; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Luxembourg top-100 surnames (surnam.es). 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)
Kramer is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
German (also Kramer), Dutch, and Jewish (Ashkenazic); occupational name for a shopkeeper, peddler, or hawker, from an agent derivative of Middle High German, Middle Low German kram ‘trading post’, ‘tent’, ‘booth’. This name is widespread throughout central and eastern Europe.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Berufsname zu mnd. kremer/kramer, 'Krämer; Händler'. Die Karte zeigt Haupttonvokalismus: Varianten mit a, ä und e sowie regionale Umlauthemmung.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. krâmære/kræmer, mnd. kramer/kremer ‘(Klein-)Händler’; zeigt C/K-Varianz im Anlaut; 15506+6 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. krāmære ‘Krämer, Händler’; Beleg für Vokalvarianz a/ä/e. 21.672 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname für einen Kleinhändler; zeigt die a-Variante zu Krämer/Kremer, aus mhd. krâmære/krâmer.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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 Institorisb. 1430FRnot in their usual nameGerman churchman, inquisitor and withcraft theorist (c. 1430–c. 1505)
- Josef Kramerb. 1906DEGerman SS officer, concentration camp commandant, and convicted war criminal (1906–1945)
- Stanley Kramerb. 1913USAmerican film director and producer (1913-2001)
- Jack Kramerb. 1921USAmerican tennis player (1921–2009)
- Larry Kramerb. 1935USAmerican screenwriter, novelist, essayist, playwright, LGBT-rights and AIDS activist (1935–2020)
- Eric Allan Kramerb. 1962USAmerican actor
- Wayne Kramerb. 1965ZASouth African-American screenwriter, film producer, storyboard artist and film director
- Jana Kramerb. 1983USAmerican singer and actress
- Sven Kramerb. 1986NLDutch speed skater
- Christoph Kramerb. 1991DEGerman association football 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(measured from records)
Attested in 49 sources across 27 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 64K | #526 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 63K | #474 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 61K | #547 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 13K | #32 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 2.2K | #411 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 9
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- 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
- What does the name Kramer mean, and where does it come from?
- In the district of Under Rhine, Baden 1809. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
- In which country does Kramer have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 294 thousand people named Kramer in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kremer.
- Where is Kramer most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kramer is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 1.3 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kramer?
- In the United States, the national register counted 63,936 people named Kramer in 2010, about 1 in 5.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Kramer compared with other names?
- In Germany, Kramer is the 19th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kramer?
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/kramerThe 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, “Kramer” — the 19th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.