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German Names

These are the Germanic compounds after German got hold of them — shortened, softened and often reduced to a single memorable syllable. German pet forms are so thoroughly naturalised in English that several are used by families who would not recognize the full name behind them.

Languages behind these names Germanic Hebrew Greek Latin German

Rankings for

190 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Saylor Saylor is a girl's name with two separate origins that have converged. As an American surname it usually comes from the German Seiler, a ropemaker, and it is also read as a respelling of the English word sailor.
Girl German #217 in US
Lukas Lukas does not mean light, despite what most sources say — it means a man from Lucania, a region of southern Italy.
Boy German #288 in US
Adelaide Adelaide means noble in kind, and it is one of only three names in this group birth records mark as rising — 230th in Canada, 289th in the United States, 344th in England and Wales, 416th in France and 618th in Scotland, and setting its English peak in the most recent year on record.
Girl German #289 in US
Lorelai Lorelai is a girl's name of German origin naming a rock on the Rhine, where a siren was said to lure boatmen to their deaths.
Girl German #333 in US
Annalise Annalise is a girl's name of German origin, a compound of Anna and Liese.
Girl German #409 in US
Conrad Conrad set its American peak in the most recent year on record, 2025, on 770 births — a name birth records carry from 1880 reaching its high point a hundred and forty-five years later.
Boy German #419 in US
Lorelei Lorelei is a girl's name from a rock on the Rhine River near Koblenz, Germany.
Girl German #441 in US
Karla Karla means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant — so a name that now reads as aristocratic began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
Girl German #799 in US
Adler Peaked in 2025 · 4,353 births since 1985
Boy German #872 in US
Lisa Lisa is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a short form of Elisabeth that became a name in its own right.
Girl German #991 in US
Alaric Peaked in 2020 · 5,406 births since 1949
Boy German #1,063 in US
Elsa Elsa is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a German short form of Elisabeth.
Girl German #1,106 in US
Lazarus Peaked in 2025 · 4,266 births since 1882
Boy German #1,143 in US
Anneliese Peaked in 2005 · 7,336 births since 1926
Girl German #1,208 in US
Marlene Marlene was invented by the woman who made it famous — Marie Magdalene Dietrich contracted her own two names into one.
Girl German #1,261 in US
Jasmin Jasmin names a flower whose own name is Persian, and it traveled the length of Eurasia — yasmin passed through Arabic into Europe with the plant itself, arriving as a word and a cutting together.
Girl German #1,408 in US
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
Boy German #1,463 in US
Wolfgang Peaked in 2021 · 4,370 births since 1929
Boy German #1,515 in US
Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
Girl German #1,548 in US
Karl Karl means free man, and it is the original German spelling behind Charles — the word named a free peasant, so it began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
Boy German #1,599 in US
Karoline Peaked in 2017 · 4,156 births since 1915
Girl German #1,710 in US
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
Boy German #1,745 in US
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
Girl German #1,758 in US
Milly Peaked in 2004 · 9,809 births since 1996
Girl German #1,790 in US
Stephan Stephan means a wreath, not a crown — stephanos was the woven victor's garland at the Greek games, which is why the first Christian martyr's name reads as a prize rather than a rank.
Boy German #1,848 in US
Wolf Peaked in 2021 · 2,136 births since 1912
Boy German #1,901 in US
Mayer Peaked in 2024 · 2,665 births since 1912
Boy German #1,902 in US
Hagen Peaked in 2006 · 3,476 births since 1973
Boy German #2,054 in US
Angely Peaked in 2008 · 3,175 births since 1984
Girl German #2,085 in US
Wendell Wendell names a people rather than a quality — the Wends were the Slavic populations of eastern Germany, so the name records who someone's neighbors thought they were rather than anything they did.
Boy German #2,158 in US
Katrina Katrina has no securely known meaning, because Catherine does not — the Greek original has never been derived, and the pure reading was attached centuries later by a false association.
Girl German #2,238 in US
Klaus Peaked in 2022 · 1,817 births since 1953
Boy German #2,254 in US
Kurt Kurt means bold counsel, shortened from Konrad — and the courteous reading commonly given is a false friend, coming from an unrelated French word that only sounds similar.
Boy German #2,279 in US
Malaika Peaked in 2006 · 6,558 births since 1968
Girl German #2,330 in US
Blue Peaked in 2021 · 2,355 births since 1968
Unisex German #2,647 in US
Charlize Peaked in 2004 · 9,212 births since 1998
Girl German #2,651 in US
Fritz Peaked in 1956 · 7,552 births since 1880
Boy German #2,762 in US
Selma Selma may have been invented by a forger — the name appears in Macpherson's Ossian poems of the 1760s, which he presented as ancient Gaelic epic and largely wrote himself.
Girl German #2,810 in US
Irma Irma means whole or complete, and it is the surviving fragment of much longer Germanic names — Irmgard and Irmintrud both begin with it, and only the first element outlasted them.
Girl German #3,178 in US
Gretel Peaked in 2022 · 1,677 births since 1915
Girl German #3,270 in US
Ronni Peaked in 1949 · 4,060 births since 1936
Girl German #3,391 in US
Brandt Peaked in 2007 · 6,456 births since 1915
Boy German #3,678 in US
Krista Krista means a follower of Christ, and it is the sixth spelling of this name family to appear in this group — after Kristin, Kristen, Kristina, Kristine and Kristi.
Girl German #3,710 in US
Rosy Peaked in 2018 · 3,872 births since 1882
Girl German #3,747 in US
Dietrich Peaked in 2016 · 2,253 births since 1917
Boy German #3,791 in US
Amalie Peaked in 2011 · 2,835 births since 1883
Girl German #3,974 in US
Frieda Peaked in 1916 · 29,105 births since 1880
Girl German #4,028 in US
Rudolph Rudolph means famous wolf, and the reindeer was invented to sell things — a Montgomery Ward copywriter wrote him for a giveaway booklet in 1939, which makes him a corporate creation rather than a folk one.
Boy German #4,168 in US

Related Origins