Cerf or Le Cerf is a French-language surname, derived from cerf, meaning "hind", "hart" or "deer". It is common for both Christians and Jews, an equivalent of Naphtali, to which the meaning of "hind" is attributed [1], and is thus also the equivalent of the same name translated into other European languages, for example Hirsch in German and Jellinek in Czech.
Notable people with this surname include the following:
Bennett Cerf (1898–1971), publisher and co-founder of Random HouseChristopher Cerf (born 1941), his son, American author, composer-lyricist, and record and television producerJonathan Cerf, his son, author of Big Bird's Red Book and the 1980 world champion of Othello, the board gamePhyllis Cerf (1916–2006), American actress, journalist, and children's book publisher, and the co-founder of Beginner BooksCamille Cerf (journalist) (a man, 1862 - 1936), Belgian journalist and camera operator who worked for the Lumière brothers as of 1895Camille Cerf (a woman, born 1994), recipient of the Miss France 2015 awardCécile Cerf (1916–1973), French resistance fighterFerdinand Le Cerf (1881–1945), French entomologistGustav Zerffi, born Cerf or Hirsch (1820–1892), Hungarian Jewish journalist, revolutionary and spyJean Cerf (born 1928), French mathematician who worked in differential topology and symplectic geometry, pioneer of Cerf theoryKarl Friedrich Cerf (1782–1845), German theatrical managerMuriel Cerf (1950–2012), French novelist and travel writerVint Cerf (born 1943), American computer scientist, often referred to as one of the founding fathers of the InternetNicolas J. Cerf (born 1965), a Belgian theoretical physicist working on quantum information theory