Leitner
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname from mhd (Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 20 countries · latest register: dane.gov.pl, 2026
Leitner is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country: 4,010 people, counted by the Census Bureau in 2010. In Austria it is the 14th most common surname.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 25K(measured from records)
- SKSlovakia1 in 25K
- CZCzechia1 in 38K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 182 (measured from records)
- 1 in 25K (inferred from the name graph)
4,010 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)Toponymic surname from mhd. līte 'Abhang'; variant with -er. Bearer count: 2372+135.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Where the surname Leitner is found
(measured from records)Leitner 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 | — | 4,010 | 1 in 83K | 4K | Leitner | 182 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 341 | 1 in 25K | 341 | Leitner | 44 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 281 | 1 in 38K | 281 | — | — |
| SK Slovakia | — | 217 | 1 in 25K | 217 | — | 1 |
| PL Poland | — | 106 | 1 in 361K | 69 | Leitner | 1 |
| DK Denmark | — | 71 | 1 in 83K | 71 | — | — |
| AT Austria | #14 | — | — | — | Leitner | 142 |
4,010 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017; JÚĽŠ SAV — Databáza priezvisk na Slovensku (surname database, 1995 census); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (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)Leitner is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, name for someone who lived on the side of a mountain or slope of a hill, from Ger. Leite slope (MHG iTte, OHG (h)ltta) + -(n)er suffix denoting a native or inhabitant of a place, also an agent noun. The Ger. surname is par¬ ticularly common in Bavaria and Austria.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
topographic name for someone who lived by a mountain spur or on a slope of a mountain, from Middle High German Ute ‘mountain slope’, ‘spur’ + the suffix -(n)er, denoting an inhabitant.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
occupational name from Yiddish leytn ‘to solder’ + the agent suffix -ner (see Leitman).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, Toponymic surname from a dwelling/place name; likely a Wohnstätten- or Herkunftsname to mhd. līte 'Abhang', also to SiedlungsN like Leut(h)en. Bearers: Leitner 2372; Leithner 135; Leiter 370; Leutner 448; Leuthner 242.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
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)- Ferdinand Leitnerb. 1912DEGerman composer and conductor (1912-1996)
- Sebastian Leitnerb. 1919DEGerman psychologist (1919–1989)
- Moritz Leitnerb. 1992DEGerman 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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)33 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 20 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Leitner come from?
- Toponymic surname from mhd. līte 'Abhang'; variant with -er. Bearer count: 2372+135. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- What does the name Leitner mean?
- Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from mhd.
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Leitner?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 4.0 thousand people named Leitner, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled leitner. After it come Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland; the country table on this page ranks them.
- Where is Leitner most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Leitner is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 25 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Leitner?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,010 people named Leitner in 2010, about 1 in 83 thousand residents.
- How common is Leitner compared with other names?
- In Austria, Leitner is the 14th most common surname of 127,275 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Leitner?
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/leitnerThe 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, “Leitner” — ranked 8266th in the United States (Census Bureau, 2010). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.