Bannister
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Bannister is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. Recorded meaning: Turstan, Richard Banastre 1149–53 EngFeud (L), 1186 Eynsham (O); Richard Banester 1459 AD vi (St); John Banyster 1554 FrY.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 12K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 14K
- USUnited States1 in 39K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 358 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 12K (inferred from the name graph)
≈17,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Turstan, Richard Banastre 1149–53 EngFeud (L), 1186 Eynsham (O); Richard Banester 1459 AD vi (St); John Banyster 1554 FrY. OFr banastre ‘basket’. Metonymic for a 173 basket-maker.
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Bannister 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 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 83K | — | Bannister | 3 |
| US United States | 8,639 | 1 in 39K | 8.6K | Bannister | 358 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 12K | listed | Bannister | 210 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,800 est. | ≈1 in 14K | 1 | Bannister | 142 |
| ID Indonesia | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 162K | — | Bannister | 9 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 21K | — | Bannister | 56 |
| GY Guyana | 54 | 1 in 14K | 54 | — | 5 |
| IS Iceland | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 24K | — | Bannister | 3 |
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; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Bannister is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, ‘basket-weaver’, from Anglo-Norman banastre ‘basket’
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, from OFr banastre ‘basket’, metonymic for a basket-maker; first attested Turstan, Richard Banastre 1149–53 EngFeud (L)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, railing; staircase banister
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In Irish, A metonymic from Old-French banastre, basket, occasionally found in mediaeval Ireland; more numerous since seventeenth-century immigration when families of the name settled in Cos. Carlow and Cork
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)
- Edward Mitchell Bannisterb. 1828USBlack Canadian-American visual artist (1828-1901)
- Roger Bannisterb. 1929GBEnglish physician and athlete (1929–2018)
- Trevor Bannisterb. 1934GBBritish actor (1934-2011)
- Reggie Bannisterb. 1945USAmerican musician, actor and director
- Brown Bannisterb. 1951UScontemporary Christian music producer and songwriter
- Alan Bannisterb. 1951USAmerican baseball player
- Gary Bannisterb. 1960GBEnglish footballer (born 1960)
- Ken Bannisterb. 1960USAmerican basketball player (born 1960)
- Drew Bannisterb. 1974CACanadian ice hockey player and coach
- Brian Bannisterb. 1981USAmerican baseball player
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 33 sources across 21 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 8.6K | #4,105 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 8.3K | #4,149 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.1K | #4,019 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 54 | #571 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of English Surnames (Reaney & Wilson, 1991) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 Bannister come from?
- Turstan, Richard Banastre 1149–53 EngFeud (L), 1186 Eynsham (O); Richard Banester 1459 AD vi (St); John Banyster 1554 FrY. OFr banastre ‘basket’. Metonymic for a 173 basket-maker. Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What does the name Bannister mean?
- Recorded meaning: Turstan, Richard Banastre 1149–53 EngFeud (L), 1186 Eynsham (O); Richard Banester 1459 AD vi (St); John Banyster 1554 FrY.
- In which country does Bannister have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 17 thousand people named Bannister in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled bannister.
- How common is the name Bannister?
- In the United States, the national register counted 8,639 people named Bannister in 2010, about 1 in 39 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Bannister?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/bannisterThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 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, “Bannister”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.