Specht
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. from the bird name Specht; 2
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 20 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ʃpɛçt/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Specht is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 6.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- DKDenmark1 in 32K
- ATAustria≈1 in 38Kfew records
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)
- Record sources
- 311 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 6.3K (inferred from the name graph)
≈13,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)1. from the bird name Specht; 2. from MHG spehter 'chatterer'.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Specht 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 | #567 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | listed | Specht | 157 |
| US United States | — | 5,738 | 1 in 58K | 5.8K | Specht | 311 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,946 | 1 in 109K | 1.9K | — | 1 |
| FR France | — | ≈960 est. | ≈1 in 72K | 112 | — | 4 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈850 est. | ≈1 in 81K | 61 | Specht | 43 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈240 est. | ≈1 in 38K | — | Specht | 35 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 203 | 1 in 41K | 203 | Specht | 30 |
| DK Denmark | — | 182 | 1 in 32K | 182 | Specht | 39 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 39K | — | Specht | 6 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; the deutsche-namenkunde-gottschald-1982 register; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)Specht 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 German, woodpecker
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
In German, picid (member of the Picidae family of birds)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Wahrscheinlich Spitzname zu mhd. spaht, speht(er), spehten 'lautes Sprechen, Geschwätz'; 4890 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, 1. Spech, |t, tl [mhd. spech(t), mundartl. auch speck]; Grün| spedit, speck, Speicht; vgl. Dau- benspeck u. s. hacken. Spechtenhauser. 2. mhd. speht(er) "Schwätzer". Spechter
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In Dutch, woodpecker, bird of the family Picidae
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)- Richard Spechtb. 1870ATAustrian lyricist, dramatist, musicologist and writer (1870–1932)
- Minna Spechtb. 1879DEGerman educator and founding member of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (1879–1961)
- Heinrich Spechtb. 1885DEGerman politician (1885-1952)
- Karl-Wilhelm Spechtb. 1894DEGerman General and Knight's Cross recipients (1894–1953)
- Wilhelm Spechtb. 1907DEGerman mathematician (1907–1985)
- Joachim Spechtb. 1931DEGerman screenwriter and author
- Léonard Spechtb. 1954FRFrench footballer
- Rafeb. 1966USnot in their usual nameAmerican pornographic actor
- Michele Spechtb. 1973USAmerican actress
- Franziska Spechtfilm producer
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.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.8K | #5,538 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 5.7K | #5,991 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5.4K | #6,125 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.9K | #4,988 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 203 | #6,203 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 186 | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 182 | #2,826 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 149 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 143 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 128 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 124 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 118 | — |
Reference works 7
- 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
- Where does the name Specht come from?
- 1. from the bird name Specht; 2. from MHG spehter 'chatterer'. Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- How do you pronounce Specht?
- In German /ʃpɛçt/ (Wiktionary).
- What does the name Specht mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. from the bird name Specht; 2.
- In which country does Specht have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 13 thousand people named Specht in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled specht.
- How common is the name Specht?
- In the United States, the national register counted 5,738 people named Specht in 2010, about 1 in 58 thousand residents.
- How common is Specht compared with other names?
- In Germany, Specht is the 567th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Specht?
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/spechtThe 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, “Specht” — the 567th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.