List
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/lɪst/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
List is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 16K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 74K
- USUnited States1 in 87K
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
- 313 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Austria, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
nickname for someone who was wise and knowledgeable, from Middle High German list, Dutch list ‘wisdom’, ‘ingenuity’.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
How List is read(measured from records)
List 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.
- English68%
A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German17%
individual, from Ger. List, Du. list guile, ingenuity, strata¬
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
cunning, craft
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
List 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 | — | ≈5,000 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | List | 125 |
| US United States | — | 3,814 | 1 in 87K | 3.8K | List | 313 |
| AT Austria | #761 | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 9.1K | — | List | 66 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 74K | listed | List | 103 |
| DK Denmark | — | 435 | 1 in 13K | 435 | — | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 418 | 1 in 41K | 418 | List | 49 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈99 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | List | 7 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); 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)
List is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
nickname for someone who was wise and knowledgeable, from Middle High German list, Dutch list ‘wisdom’, ‘ingenuity’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Americanized spelling of Hungarian Liszt, a metonymic occupational name for a miller, from liszt ‘flour’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
habitational name from Ter List, the name being derived from the plant Us ‘iris’, ‘flag’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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 Listb. 1789USGerman economist
- Wilhelm Listb. 1880DEGerman field marshal (1880–1971)
- Emanuel Listb. 1888ATAustrian opera singer (1888-1967)
- John Emil Listb. 1925USAmerican mass murderer (1925–2008)
- Robert Listb. 1936USAmerican attorney and politician
- Niki Listb. 1956ATAustrian film director, actor, screenwriter and film producer (1956–2009)
- Benjamin Listb. 1968DEGerman chemist (1968-)
- John Listb. 1968USAmerican economist
- Peyton Listb. 1986USAmerican actress (born 1986)
- Peyton Listb. 1998USAmerican actress (born 1998)
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 39 sources across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.8K | #8,623 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.8K | #8,034 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 3.8K | #8,387 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 435 | #1,009 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 418 | #4,794 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- 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
- 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 List come from?
- nickname for someone who was wise and knowledgeable, from Middle High German list, Dutch list ‘wisdom’, ‘ingenuity’. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What are other forms of the name List?
- In the etymology graph, Lister, Lista and Trick are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce List?
- A machine transcription gives /lɪst/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name List mean?
- In English, A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth.
- In which country does List have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.0 thousand people named List in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled list.
- How common is the name List?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,814 people named List in 2010, about 1 in 87 thousand residents.
- How common is List compared with other names?
- In Austria, List is the 761st most common surname of 127,275 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about List?
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/listThe 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, “List” — the 761st most common surname in Austria. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.