Bollard
surname · Latin script
Meaning: said to be originally Dutch; perhaps a variant of BALLARD; first attested John Bollard 1327 SREss
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 6 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈbɒlɑːd/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Bollard is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States.
- IEIreland
- AUAustralia
- FRFrance
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)said to be originally Dutch; perhaps a variant of BALLARD; first attested John Bollard 1327 SREss
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.
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)Bollard 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, John Bollard 1327 SREss; William Bollard 1367 IpmNt; John Bottard 1689 FrY. Said to be originally Dutch. Perhaps a variant of BALLARD.
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, A strong vertical post of timber or iron, fixed to the ground and/or on the deck of a ship, to which the ship's mooring lines etc are secured.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, John K., US lexicographer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In Irish, Of Dutch origin, this name came to Ireland in the early seventeenth century, and soon became prominent in the commercial life of Dublin. The quite distinct Norman name Ballard (Middle-English bald head) goes back to early mediaeval times
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)- John Bollardb. 1839NZNew Zealand politician (c. 1839 – 1915)
- Richard Bollardb. 1863NZNew Zealand politician (1863–1927)
- William Allen Bollardb. 1869NZNew Zealand painter (1869-1941)
- Tom Bollardb. 1890AUAustralian rules footballer
- Albert Ernest Bollardb. 1912NZNew Zealand painter (1912-1993)
- Ted Bollardb. 1920NZNew Zealand botanist, plant physiologist and science administrator (1920–2011)
- John Bollardb. 1940NZNew Zealand judge (1940–2009)
- Alan Bollardb. 1951NZNew Zealand banker
- John K. BollardUSauthor, medievalist and translator
- Nicholas BollardEnglish Dominican friar and writer on botany
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)12 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 6 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 458 | #49,576 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 453 | #44,654 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 416 | #50,275 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 73 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 68 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 59 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 55 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 54 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 52 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 51 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 48 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1891 | 47 | — |
Reference works 3
- 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)
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 Bollard mean, and where does it come from?
- said to be originally Dutch; perhaps a variant of BALLARD; first attested John Bollard 1327 SREss Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Bollard?
- In the etymology graph, Poller is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Bollard?
- In English /ˈbɒlɑːd/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Bollard have the most bearers?
- Bollard is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Bollard?
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/bollardThe 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, “Bollard”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.