Roelf
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹoʊɫf/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Roelf is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 78th most common given name.
- NLNetherlands1 in 4.4K(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 234as Rolf
- DEGermany≈1 in 368as Rolf
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 Roelf 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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 294 (measured from records)
- 1 in 4.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈220,000 named Rolf, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Rolf in DE Germany, SE Sweden, NO Norway and 3 more.
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)
Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung. Karte zeigt oe-Variante gegenüber o/oh/ö; 5 Types, 143 Tokens.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Roelf 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 | #78 | ≈220,000 est. | ≈1 in 368 | — | Rolf | 240 |
| SE Sweden | #129 | 43,582as Rolf | 1 in 234 | 44K | Rolf | 123 |
| CH Switzerland | #21 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 594 | 10 | Rolf | 142 |
| NO Norway | #80 | 10,536as Rolf | 1 in 519 | 29K | Rolf | 122 |
| NL Netherlands | #424 | 3,956 | 1 in 4.4K | 3.9K | Rolf | 99 |
| FI Finland | #715 | 1,803as Rolf | 1 in 3.1K | 4.5K | Rolf | 32 |
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: Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Roelf Meijerb. 1827NLDutch organ maker (1827-1884)
- Roelf Takensb. 1862NLpainter and printmaker
- Roelf Heyenb. 1938DEGerman politician (1938-1975)
- Roel Dijkhuisb. 1943NLnot in their usual nameDutch journalist and editor-in-chief (1943–2020)
- Roelf Meyerb. 1947ZASouth African politician
- Roelf de Boerb. 1949NLDutch former politician
- Roelf T. te Veldeb. 1974NLacademic
- Roelf Pienaarb. 1993ZASouth African athletics competitor
- Roelf MulderNLDutch police officer
- Pieter R. RoelfsemaNLnot in their usual namecognitive scientist
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)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 11 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 3.9K | #449 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 2.5K | #1,192 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018) | — | 7 | #27,806 |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- How do you pronounce Roelf?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹoʊɫf/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Roelf mean?
- Recorded meaning: Schreibvariante des Patronyms zu Rolf mit oe als alter Längenmarkierung.
- Is Roelf a male or female name?
- Roelf is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- In which country does Roelf have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 218 thousand people named Rolf in Germany, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Roelf most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Roelf is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 4.4 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Roelf?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 3,956 people named Roelf, about 1 in 4.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Roelf compared with other names?
- In Germany, Roelf is the 78th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Roelf?
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/roelfThe 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, “Roelf” — the 78th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.