Machen
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 'stonemason', from Anglo-Norman machun, variant of Old French masson
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈmækən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Machen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 140K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 160K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 142K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 260 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 140K (inferred from the name graph)
2,077 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
'stonemason', from Anglo-Norman machun, variant of Old French masson
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Machen 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 | 2,077 | 1 in 160K | 2.1K | Machen | 260 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈470 est. | ≈1 in 140K | listed | Machen | 87 |
| NG Nigeria | ≈400 est. | ≈1 in 533K | — | Machen | 11 |
| IT Italy | ≈360 est. | ≈1 in 173K | — | Machen | 1 |
| AU Australia | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 142K | — | Machen | 55 |
| SG Singapore | ≈38 est. | ≈1 in 165K | — | Machen | 1 |
2,077 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; the welsh-surnames-morgan-1985 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)
Machen 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.
In English, from Machen village in S.W. Gwent; later adopted as a family surname
as a nameWelsh Surnames
In English, An English surname from Anglo-Norman [in turn originating as an occupation].
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, to do, make
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, to make, to produce, to create (an object, arrangement, situation, etc.)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Czech, genitive plural of machna
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)
- Thomas Machenb. 1541GBEnglish politician
- Willis Benson Machenb. 1810USAmerican politician (1810–1893)
- Minnie Buckner Machenb. 1860USmother of Zelda Fitzgerald
- Arthur Machenb. 1863GBWelsh author and mystic (1863–1947)
- Lewis H. Machenb. 1871USAmerican politician and lawyer
- John Gresham Machenb. 1881USAmerican theologian (1881–1937)
- Alwyn Machenb. 1900GBBritish trade union leader
- Hervey Machenb. 1916USAmerican politician (1916–1994)
- Eddie Machenb. 1932USAmerican boxer (1932–1972)
- Bernie Machenb. 1944USAmerican university president, professor of pediatric dentistry, dental surgeon
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 15 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.1K | #14,392 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2K | #13,957 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.7K | #16,039 |
| GB United Kingdom | Welsh Surnames (Morgan & Morgan, 1985) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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
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 Machen mean, and where does it come from?
- 'stonemason', from Anglo-Norman machun, variant of Old French masson Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Machen?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈmækən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Machen have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.1 thousand people named Machen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled machen.
- How common is the name Machen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,077 people named Machen in 2010, about 1 in 160 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Machen?
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/machenThe 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, “Machen”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.