Trump is a surname of English and German origin:

The majority of people with the surname live in the United States (close to 5,000 individuals, about 900 of whom live in Pennsylvania); the surname does survive in both Germany and England, but is comparatively rare (below 500 individuals in each country).

Bahlow (1982) derives the German surname Trump from a Bavarian word for "drum" (Middle High German trumpe).^[3] It is on record since the early modern period, with immigration to colonial North America from the 1730s.

Donald Trump is the grandson of Friedrich Trump (later named Frederick) from Kallstadt, Germany. The German Verein für Computergenealogie traces the ancestry of Friedrich Trump to Johann Paul Trump (1727–1792) in Bobenheim am Berg in the German Palatinate.^[4] From there, Johannes Trump (1789–1835) moved to the nearby village of Kallstadt. His son Johannes Christian Trump (1829–1877) married Katharina Kober from Wachenheim, and their last child, Friedrich, emigrated to New York in 1885.

There are two spellings of Donald Trump's surname in Chinese, both introduced before his entering the political stage. The spelling 特朗普 (pinyin Tèlǎngpǔ) was introduced for the Chinese translation of his The Art of the Deal (1987, trans. 1989^[5]) and 川普 (pinyin Chuānpǔ) for the Chinese translation of Trump-Style Negotiations by George H. Ross (2008^[6]). Both versions are attempts to approximate the English pronunciation of the name to Chinese phonology, the former being more closely associated with British English and the latter with American English. With the election of Donald Trump as US president, there has been some debate in Chinese media as to which spelling to use, because it seemed impractical to keep using two variants. But there now seems to be a division between Mainland Chinese sources, PRC state media and the Chinese-language BBC using 特朗普 on one hand vs. sources in Taiwan, Hong Kong and most overseas Chinese using 川普 on the other. Apart from these two spellings used in mainstream media, there are deliberately disparaging spellings used in Chinese social media, such as 闯破 or 床破 (pinyin Chuángpò, including the pejorative 破 "low-quality; poor; lousy").^[7]

Trump is a contemporary German surname (comparatively rare, with 382 phone book entries as of 2016), with concentrations in the Cologne area, the Bad Dürkheim district (includes Kallstadt), Gifhorn district and the Schwäbisch Hall/Ansbach region.^[8]

The German surname was introduced to the Province of Pennsylvania in 1733. Philip Thomas Trump was recorded as part of a group of Germans from the Palatinate.^[9] In the United States, there were close to 4,800 individuals with the surname on record as of 2016, Pennsylvania still accounting for close to one fifth of their number.^[10]

The modern English surnames Trump, Tromp and Trumper are derived from occupational names referring to "trumpet", either for trumpeters or trumpet-makers. Early attestations of the occupational name include references to one Patrick Trumpe in Cumbria (1275), to Adam Trumpur in Essex (also 1275), and to Nicholas Trump in Cambridgeshire (1279). One William Trompeur is recorded in London in 1320, and one John le Trumpour in Yorkshire in 1327.^[2] One of the Monmouth rebels transported to the West Indies in 1685 was Humphrey Trump of Membury, Devon. In modern English surname Trump is localized in Southwestern England, especially Devon and Somerset.^[11] 429 individuals named Trump were reported for Great Britain as of 2016 (compared to 458 in 1881).^[2]