Förster

surname · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Förster is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 99th most common surname. Recorded meaning: normally an occupational name ‘forester’; here discussed also as a possible nickname.

rarermore common
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 3.1K(measured from records)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 3.6K
  • ATAustria≈1 in 7.1K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈22,000 people, est.

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
392 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)

Switzerland

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

FörsterLatin(measured from records)
ฟอรสเตอรThai(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Forster in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 2 more.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

normally an occupational name ‘forester’; here discussed also as a possible nickname

Sources 1

  • Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Attested across 22 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Förster counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Förster is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#99≈22,000 est.≈1 in 3.6KlistedFörster163
US United States—9,1161 in 36K9.1KForster392
GB United Kingdom#578≈8,300 est.≈1 in 8KlistedForster238
AU Australia#668≈3,300 est.≈1 in 7.6K—Forster172
CH Switzerland#1772,6991 in 3.1K2.7KForster67
AT Austria#311≈1,200 est.≈1 in 7.1K—Forster76

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Förster is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Forster, Főrster, Fōrster

  • Russian surname17 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, United States, Kazakhstan, Ukraine

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Ферстер, Forster, Фёрстер, Foerster, Ferster

36 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Förster is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In German, forester (a person who practices forestry)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, Berufsname zu mhd. forstære ‘Waldhüter, Förster’; Karte zeigt o/ö- und v/f-, ch-/k- sowie Umlaut-/Nichtumlaut-Varianten. Belegzahlen: Österreich Förster:Forster 327:906; Schweiz 63:1395.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • In German, Berufsname zu Förster ‘Waldhüter’; 14718 Token. Die Karte zeigt die Verteilung der Umlaut- und nicht umgelauteten Vokalvarianten.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • In German, Berufsnachname zu mhd. vorst/vorstmester 'Waldaufseher, Förster'; die Karte zeigt o/ö-Vokalvariation.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

  • In German, Toponymischer Herkunftsname zu dem Siedlungsnamen Förste bei Osterode und bei Hildesheim; Formen im Text als F(ö/oe)rster- belegt. Bearer count 92+2.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

175018001850190019502000Ludwig Förster, b. 1797Arnold Förster, b. 1810August Förster, b. 1822Bernhard Förster, b. 1843Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, b. 1846Otto-Wilhelm Förster, b. 1885Bernd Förster, b. 1956Karlheinz Förster, b. 1958Olaf Förster, b. 1962Kerstin Förster, b. 1965

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 15 sources across 10 countries.

Reference works 4

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Förster mean, and where does it come from?
normally an occupational name ‘forester’; here discussed also as a possible nickname Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
What are other forms of the name Förster?
In the etymology graph, Forst is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Förster have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 22 thousand people named Förster in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled förster.
Where is Förster most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Förster is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 3.1 thousand people — even though Germany holds more of our records for it.
How common is the name Förster?
In the United States, the national register counted 9,116 people named Förster in 2010, about 1 in 36 thousand residents.
How common is Förster compared with other names?
In Germany, Förster is the 99th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Förster?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/f%C3%B6rster

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), and bulk access is licensed separately.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Förster” — the 99th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Förster parses inside a full name →