Find out how popular the last name Wegener is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Wegener.

Wegener, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Wegener surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Wegener in America

Wegener is the 10326th most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Wegener surname appeared 3,120 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 people would have the surname Wegener.

We can also compare 2010 data for Wegener to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Wegener

The surname WEGENER has its origins in Germany, dating back to the late medieval period in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is believed to be derived from the old German word "wegen," which translates to "road" or "path." This suggests that the name may have initially been given to someone who lived near a road or pathway, or perhaps worked as a road builder or guide.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the WEGENER surname can be found in the medieval German town of Augsburg, where a man named Henricus Wegener was mentioned in a document from 1312. Another early example comes from the city of Lübeck, where a merchant named Johannes Wegener was recorded in the city's records in 1428.

During the Renaissance period, the name WEGENER began to spread across various regions of Germany. In 1521, a man named Hans Wegener was listed as a resident of the town of Erfurt in Thuringia. A few decades later, in 1567, a Lutheran pastor named Martin Wegener was born in the city of Magdeburg.

As the centuries progressed, the WEGENER surname continued to be associated with notable individuals. In the 18th century, Johann Gottfried Wegener (1703-1770) was a German philosopher and theologian who wrote extensively on the subjects of metaphysics and ethics. A century later, in 1880, Alfred Wegener was born in Berlin. He would go on to become a pioneering German meteorologist and geophysicist, best known for his theory of continental drift.

Other notable individuals with the WEGENER surname include Georg Wegener (1613-1690), a German mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the field of logarithms, and Willy Wegener (1895-1981), a German actor and film director who appeared in several notable films during the Weimar Republic era.

Despite its German origins, the WEGENER surname has also been found in other parts of Europe and beyond, likely due to migration patterns throughout history. However, its roots can be traced back to the medieval German regions, where it first emerged as a descriptive name for those living near roads or paths.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Wegener

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Wegener.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Wegener was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Wegener has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of the name Wegener was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Wegener, please contact us.

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