Koenker

Koenker is a surname of likely Germanic origin. It is found in North America and parts of Europe, and has been carried by several professionals in academia and public life. In statistics and econometrics, the name is associated with Roger Koenker, an American statistician and economist known for developing quantile regression. Koenker and Gilbert Bassett introduced the method in their 1978 paper Regression Quantiles, a foundational contribution that has since become widely used in econometrics, statistics, and data analysis. Quantile regression estimates conditional quantiles of a response variable, providing a robust alternative to ordinary least squares that focuses on different parts of the outcome distribution rather than its mean. The approach has applications across economics, finance, epidemiology, and social science research, including modeling wage distributions, income inequality, and demand relationships.

Beyond Roger Koenker, the surname appears in other fields through private individuals and professionals, but he remains the most widely cited figure linked to the name in scholarly references. The Koenker name thus holds a place in both genealogical and methodological contexts, most prominently associated with the development and application of quantile regression.