Krueger
A German occupational surname meaning “farmer” or “tiller of the soil.”
The #946 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 8,403 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Krueger is a spelling variant of German Krüger/Kruger, a surname built from Middle Low German and related German words for a farmer, plowman, or smallholder. In many surname traditions, it points to someone who worked the land rather than to a place name. The spelling with -ue- commonly represents the German umlaut ü in English-language records.
History
The surname appears widely in German-speaking areas and later spread through migration to North America and elsewhere. In English records, Krueger often alternates with Kruger, especially where umlauts were simplified. The name is common enough in the United States to be familiar, but it remains strongly associated with German ancestry.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The -ue- spelling is a classic anglicized way of writing German ü when old typewriters or records could not easily show the umlaut.
From the historical record
“Kreiling, Kreis, Kreissman, Krem, Kretschmer, Krey, Kriesler, Kroeger, Krogman, Kroll, Kron- berg, Krueger, Kruger, Krug, Kumb, Kummel, KuMMER, Kuntz, Kdpfer, Kurtz, Kyes, Kylander, Kyle, Kyles. Labbottiere, Laborre, Labree, Lacost, Lacount, Ladlae, Ladreyt, Lafferty, Lafleur, Laforest,”
— Suffolk Surnames (3rd ed.)