Bister
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Alternative spelling of bistre
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/bɪstɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Bister is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- USUnited States
- HRCroatia
- DEGermany
Where the name is found, darker where our sources hold more of it. No national register counts its bearers anywhere we hold data, so the map carries no figures. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
1. from ON Bisten, Saarland. 2. Slavic bystry 'quick, sharp'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Bister is read(measured from records)
Bister is one spelling over 4 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English42%
Alternative spelling of bistre.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German19%
1. from ON Bisten, Saarland. 2. Slavic bystry 'quick, sharp'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
- French19%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Bister in French.
- Croatian5.8%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Bister in Croatian.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Recorded in:
No national register we accept counts this name’s bearers, so the page lists where it is found and publishes no figure.
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)
Bister is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Swedish, serious and hard; grim, stern, etc.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Slovenian, clear (transparent)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In frr, angry
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Valérie Louise Délioux de Savignacb. 1861FRnot in their usual nameFrench writer
- Feliks Bisterb. 1939ATSlovenian historian
- Jean-Francis Bisterb. 1957FRFrench politician
- Daniela Bisterb. 1983(born 1983)
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 18 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 596 | #2,961 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register) | — | 271 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 117 | #133,114 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 108 | #6,790 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form) | 2021 | 74 | #10,029 |
| HR Croatia | DZS — Učestalost prezimena (Popis 2021) | 2021 | 73 | — |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 53 | #25,100 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 39 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 38 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 27 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 23 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 21 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Bister come from?
- 1. from ON Bisten, Saarland. 2. Slavic bystry 'quick, sharp' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What are other forms of the name Bister?
- In the etymology graph, Bistre is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Bister?
- A machine transcription gives /bɪstɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Bister mean?
- In English, Alternative spelling of bistre.
- In which country does Bister have the most bearers?
- Bister is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Bister?
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/bisterThe 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, “Bister”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.