NEUMANN
Neumann is a surname of German origin, deriving from the Middle High German words niuwe meaning “new” and mann meaning “man”. The literal translation is “new man”, a designation that originally applied to someone who was a newcomer or recent inhabitant of a settlement.
The surname is best understood as an occupational or descriptive name. In the medieval period a person who had moved to a new village or town would be referred to as the neuwe mann, and this phrase eventually became hereditary as family names were fixed.
Variations in spelling are common, reflecting linguistic differences across Europe. The forms Neumann, Neuman and Nyeman are found in German and French records, while the Anglo‑Scottish version Newman has been used in England and Scotland since at least the 12th century. Other variants such as Niemann, Newmark and the Czech‑Slavic Neumannova and Neumannov illustrate the spread of the name into non‑Germanic speaking regions.
The earliest documentary mention of the name is in the Pipe Rolls of Norfolk, England, where a record dated 1166 names Stangrim Noueman. A subsequent example appears in the Oxfordshire Pipe Rolls of 1169 with the individual Godwin Nieweman. In Germany, a 1325 record cites Herman Nyeman of Barth. Across the Atlantic, one of the first recorded bearers of the name to set foot in North America was Thomas Newman, aged fifteen, who departed London on the ship Plaine Joan bound for Virginia in May 1635.
Celebrated individuals bearing the surname include the mathematician John von Neumann, the German President Richard von Weizsäcker (born Richard Karl Freiherr von Neumann), and other figures whose contributions have spanned science, politics and the arts.
Geographically, the surname is most common in Germany, where it remains well distributed, particularly in the Saxon region. It is also found throughout Austria, where the spelling is unchanged. In the United States the concentration of the name lies in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, areas with a large German immigrant heritage. Canadian distributions include Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Australian occurrences are present in all states, with notable clusters in South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. In New Zealand the name is chiefly recorded in the North Island, with sparser instances in the South. The Dominican Republic contains a significant diaspora of Neumanns, especially in the province of Santiago, which hosts a settlement of German‑speaking Mennonites that has existed for more than a century.
Among Ashkenazi Jews, the surname was adopted en masse in the early nineteenth century when authorities in the German Empire required Jewish families to take permanent surnames. Consequently, the name appears frequently in Jewish records and is recognised as a common German‑origin Jewish surname.
A heraldic record associated with the name is the coat of arms granted to the Newman family of Mamhead in Devonshire. The blazon describes a black shield featuring three silver lions rampant, langued red, with a silver lion rampant crest. This emblem has become part of the family’s traditional insignia.
Typical given names associated with the Neumann surname
Male
- Alexander
- Bernd
- Dieter
- Jonathan
- Mark
- Michael
- Paul
- Peter
- Richard
- Robert
- Werner
Female
- Amy
- Aneta
- Anna
- Barbara
- Brenda
- Caroline
- Claire
- Elizabeth
- Erika
- Gwendoline
- Jessica
- Patricia
- Samantha
- Sarah
- Stephanie
Similar and related surnames
Related and similar names are generated algorithmically based on the spelling, and may not necessarily share an etymology.
How to communicate the surname Neumann in...
Braille
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Morse
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Semaphore
There are approximately 701 people named Neumann in the UK. That makes it roughly the 9,693rd most common surname in Britain. Around 11 in a million people in Britain are named Neumann.
Religion of origin: Jewish
Language of origin: Hebrew
Famous people named Neumann
- Adam Neumann - Israeli-American businessman
- John von Neumann - Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath (1903 to 1957)
- Peter M. Neumann - Mathematician
- Arthur Henry Neumann - Explorer (1850 to 1907)
- Robert Neumann - Writer (1897 to 1975)
Names and descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia, and may contain errors. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every famous person with this name.