as a Last Name
- 8,027
- people in the U.S. have this name Get contact details for people named Germain
Meaning & Origins
French: from the Old French personal name Germain. This was popular in France, where it had been borne by a 5th-century saint, bishop of Auxerre. It derives from Latin Germanus ‘brother’, ‘cousin’ (originally an adjective meaning ‘of the same stock’, from Latin germen ‘bud’, ‘shoot’). In the Romance languages, especially Italian, the popularity of the equivalent personal name has been enhanced by association with the meaning ‘brother (in God)’, and in Spanish the cognate surname is derived from the vocabulary word meaning ‘brother’ rather than from a personal name. The feminine form, Germaine, which occurs as a place name in Aisne, Marne, and Haute-Marne, is associated with a late 16th-century saint from Provençal, the daughter of a poor farmer, who was canonized in 1867.
| 4,436th in the U.S. for 2011 |
Nicknames & variations
Quick facts
- Thousands
- of people in the U.S have this name
- 8,027
- to be exact (as of February 2011)
- Massachusetts
- has the most people named Germain per capita
Top state populations
U.S. Distribution Map
