Kohler
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Kohler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Germany it is the 46th most common surname. Recorded meaning: occupational name for a charcoal burner, from Middle High German kol ‘(char)coal’ + the agent suffix -er.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 1.2K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 1.4K
- ATAustria≈1 in 7.2K
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 Kohler 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 395 (measured from records)
- 1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈75,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Switzerland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Köhler in DE Germany, SE Sweden.
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)
occupational name for a charcoal burner, from Middle High German kol ‘(char)coal’ + the agent suffix -er. The form Kohler is South German; elsewhere it is usually written Kohler.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kohler 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈75,000 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Kohler | 6 |
| DE Germany | #46 | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Köhler | 195 |
| US United States | — | 19,368as Koehler | 1 in 17K | 19K | Kohler | 395 |
| CH Switzerland | #47 | 6,865 | 1 in 1.2K | 6.9K | Kohler | 93 |
| BR Brazil | — | 3,750 | 1 in 56K | 3.8K | — | 4 |
| AT Austria | #253 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 7.2K | — | Kohler | 77 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,092 | 1 in 9.3K | 1.1K | Köhler | 29 |
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); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Kohler 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, a surname, Kohler, originating as an occupation
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Variante zu Köhler, Berufsname 'Köhler'; die Karte zeigt Monophthongvarianz o/ö. 5225 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu Kohler; 9857 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, Umlautlose o-Form zu mhd. koläre / mnd. koler; die Karte zeigt die Verbreitung der o-Variante gegenüber ö.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Variante zu Köhler mit o-Vokal; höchste Konzentration in PLZ 778 Bühl–Achern.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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)
- Charles-Amédée Kohlerb. 1790CHSwiss chocolatier (1790-1874)
- Kaufmann Kohlerb. 1843USGerman-born American Bible scholar, Reform rabbi and theologian (1843-1926)
- John Michael Kohlerb. 1844USAmerican industrialist and politician (1844-1900)
- Josef Kohlerb. 1849DEGerman poet (1849-1919)
- Fred Kohlerb. 1888USAmerican actor (1888-1938)
- Gilles Kohlerb. 1948FRFrench actor
- Berthold Kohlerb. 1961DEGerman journalist
- Jürgen Kohlerb. 1965DEGerman footballer
- Martin Kohlerb. 1985CHroad bicycle racer
- Kara Kohlerb. 1991USAmerican rower
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 37 sources across 19 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 17K | #2,177 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 16K | #2,018 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 16K | #2,183 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 6.9K | #61 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 3.8K | #2,848 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 34 | #17,064 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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
- Where does the name Kohler come from?
- occupational name for a charcoal burner, from Middle High German kol ‘(char)coal’ + the agent suffix -er. The form Kohler is South German; elsewhere it is usually written Kohler. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- What does the name Kohler mean?
- Recorded meaning: occupational name for a charcoal burner, from Middle High German kol ‘(char)coal’ + the agent suffix -er.
- In which country does Kohler have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 75 thousand people named Kohler in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kohler.
- Where is Kohler most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kohler is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 1.2 thousand people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kohler?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 6,865 people named Kohler in 2024, about 1 in 1.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Kohler compared with other names?
- In Germany, Kohler is the 46th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kohler?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kohlerThe 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, “Kohler” — the 46th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.