Wächter

surname · Latin script

Meaning: guard (person who guards) (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 8 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024

/ˈvɛçtɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary

Say it inExplore pronunciation →

Wächter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Liechtenstein it is the 32nd most common surname.

  • ATAustria≈1 in 3.8K(inferred from the name graph)
  • DEGermany≈1 in 12K
  • CHSwitzerland1 in 13K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Wächter itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈7,200 people, est.

Record sources
307 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 3.1K (inferred from the name graph)

Liechtenstein, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

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Spellings & scripts

(measured from records)

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Wachter in US United States, DE Germany, GB United Kingdom and 4 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.

How to pronounce Wächter

  • German:/ˈvɛçtɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

guard (person who guards)

Cited for this meaning 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 18 languages in the etymology graph.

Where the surname Wächter is found

(measured from records)

Wächter 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 Wächter is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#439≈7,200 est.≈1 in 12K—Wachter144
US United States—4,6011 in 72K4.6KWachter307
AT Austria#250≈2,400 est.≈1 in 3.8K—Wachter85
CH Switzerland#9996571 in 13K657Wachter40
GB United Kingdom—≈630 est.≈1 in 110K49Wachter53
LI Liechtenstein#32≈13 est.≈1 in 3.1K124Wachter26
AG Antigua & Barbuda—≈3 est.≈1 in 28K—Wachter1

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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); Statistik Liechtenstein — Familiennamenstatistik (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)

Wächter is also recorded as 8 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Wachter

  • Spanish surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Wachter

  • Croatian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Croatia, United States, Switzerland

    Languages: Croatian, Slovenian

    Also written Wachter

  • Hungarian surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Hungary, Switzerland, United States

    Also written Wachter

  • Hindi surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Wachter

  • French surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, Belgium, United States, Switzerland

    Also written Wachter

  • Indonesian surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Indonesia, Switzerland, Netherlands

    Also written Wachter

  • Russian surname14 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Türkiye

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Вехтер, Вахтер, Wachter, Waechter, Вахтёр

15 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.

Notable people with this name

(measured from records)
1900192019401960Otto Wächter, b. 1901Eberhard Wächter, b. 1929Veronika Bellmann, b. 1960

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).

How to address them

(machine-generated)
FormalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Dear Wächter, (English)
InformalSehr geehrte Damen und Herren,Hello, (English)

Evidence

(measured from records)

13 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 8 countries.

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

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Wächter mean, and where does it come from?
guard (person who guards) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Wächter?
In German /ˈvɛçtɐ/ (Wiktionary).
Which countries have the most people with the surname Wächter?
Mondonomo estimates about 7.2 thousand people named Wächter in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wachter. After it come United States, Austria, Switzerland and United Kingdom; the country table on this page ranks them.
How common is the name Wächter?
In the United States, the national register counted 4,601 people named Wächter in 2010, about 1 in 72 thousand residents.
How common is Wächter compared with other names?
In Germany, Wächter is the 439th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Wächter?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/w%C3%A4chter

The 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), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

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, “Wächter” — the 439th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Wächter parses inside a full name →