Altvater
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Altvater is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Verwandtschaftsname; „alter Mann“ bzw.
- DEGermany≈1 in 81K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 679K
- ATAustria≈1 in 173K
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)
- Sources
- 171 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 81K (inferred from the name graph)
≈990 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Verwandtschaftsname; „alter Mann“ bzw. „Großvater“. 455 Bearer.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Altvater 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | ≈990 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Altvater | 73 |
| US United States | 490 | 1 in 679K | 504 | Altvater | 171 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈73 est. | ≈1 in 896K | — | Altvater | 5 |
| BR Brazil | 70 | 1 in 3M | 70 | — | — |
| IT Italy | ≈65 est. | ≈1 in 955K | — | Altvater | 3 |
| AT Austria | ≈51 est. | ≈1 in 173K | — | Altvater | 10 |
| NL Netherlands | ≈23 est. | ≈1 in 744K | — | Altvater | 4 |
| IE Ireland | ≈14 est. | ≈1 in 375K | — | Altvater | 1 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020; IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname). 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).
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Heinrich Altvaterb. 1902DEAssociation footballer (1902-1994)
- Wilhelm Altvaterb. 1920DEGerman politician (1920-2001)
- Harry Altvaterb. 1930Holocaust victim (born 1930)
- Elmar Altvaterb. 1938DEGerman Marxist academic (1938-2018)
- Dieter Altvaterb. 1958ATbadminton player
- Bianca Altvaterb. 1974DEresearcher
- Simon Altvaterb. 1982DEGerman bicycle racer
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 11 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 504 | #45,684 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 490 | #43,969 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 485 | #42,134 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 70 | #82,471 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Altvater mean?
- Recorded meaning: Verwandtschaftsname; „alter Mann“ bzw.
- In which country does Altvater have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 987 people named Altvater in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled altvater.
- How common is the name Altvater?
- In the United States, the national register counted 490 people named Altvater in 2010, about 1 in 679 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Altvater?
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/altvaterThe 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, “Altvater”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.