Given name & surname
Wagner
“one who builds wagons”
Wagner is used as a given name and a surname. One German interpretation is “one who builds wagons.”
Original GermanWägele
Meaning & origin
What it means
One German interpretation is “one who builds wagons.”
Where it comes from
An origin associated with this spelling is German.
How it developed
From German Wagner (“wainwright”), from Russian Ва́гнер.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1915. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Wagner through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 347
- 347 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2009
- 15 babies
- 2025
- 10
- #8,212 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +8%
- Steady
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 10 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 8,212 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Its largest published annual count for boys was 15 in 2009. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,544 as a first name in 2020; 149,267 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Wagner’s family of names
In English usage, Wagner as a surname shares an earlier linguistic root with Wagoner. Wagner has a related form in Waggner. Wagner has a related form in Waggoner.
Inner ring: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Around the world
Wagner has relatives in 9 languages. Lines run from its German roots to each of them.
Germanwhere Wagner comes from · 19 names
Nicknames & forms 25
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
- Wägelevariant · German
- Wagenervariant · German
- Woinervariant · German
- Weinertvariant · German
- Weinervariant · German
- Wehnertvariant · German
- Wehnervariant · German
- Wegnervariant · German
Show 17 moreShow fewer
- Weglervariant · German
- Wegelervariant · German
- Wegelevariant · German
- Wegenervariant · German
- Wainervariant · German
- Wähnervariant · German
- Wahnervariant · German
- Wägnervariant · German
- Wäglervariant · German
- Waglervariant · German
- Wägelinvariant · German
- Wagnnerlikely variant
- Vágnervariant · Czech
- Wágnervariant · Czech
- Waggonervariant
- Waggnervariant
- Wagonervariant · English
Across languages 6
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Wagner
- Wagner LopesBrazilian-Japanese association football player and managerborn 1969
- Wagner MouraBrazilian actor (born 1976)
- AmaralBrazilian association football player (1966-)
- WágnerBrazilian association football playerborn 1973
- Wagner PinaCape Verdean footballer (born 2002)
- WágnerBrazilian footballerborn 1985
- Wagner DomingosBrazilian hammer throwerborn 1983
- WaguininhoBrazilian association football playerborn 1990
- Wagner LamounierBrazilian musicianborn 1970
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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