Butler
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Butler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 42nd most common surname. Recorded meaning: Occupational name meaning wine steward, from Anglo-Norman butuiller, ultimately from Latin buticula ‘bottle’.
- IEIreland≈1 in 820(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.2K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.3K
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)
- #396 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 581 (measured from records)
- 1 in 699 (inferred from the name graph)
≈680,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
St. Vincent & Grenadines
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
- Anglo-Normanbutuiller(measured from records)
- Latinbuticula(measured from records)
Occupational name meaning wine steward, from Anglo-Norman butuiller, ultimately from Latin buticula ‘bottle’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Butler 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 | — | ≈680,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Butler | 24 |
| US United States | #92 | 218,847 | 1 in 1.5K | 219K | Butler | 581 |
| GB United Kingdom | #92 | ≈53,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | listed | Butler | 318 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈28,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.8K | — | Butler | 23 |
| CA Canada | #111 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Butler | 258 |
| AU Australia | #88 | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Butler | 266 |
| IE Ireland | #42 | ≈6,300 est. | ≈1 in 820 | — | Butler | 155 |
| NZ New Zealand | #98 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Butler | 169 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | 145 | 1 in 699 | 145 | — | 2 |
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; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 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)
Butler 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 English, from AFr butuiller, OFr bouteillier ‘servant in charge of the wine-cellar’, usually the head servant; first attested Hugo Buteiller 1055 France
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, Norman-Irish family; Chief Butler of Ireland from 1177, later Earls of Ormond; associated with Gowran and Kilkenny Castle
as a nameIrish family names
In English, A manservant having charge of wines and liquors.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Nicholas Murray, US educator
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, (Nobel 1931): Samuel, English
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
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)
- Samuel Butlerb. 1835GBEnglish novelist and critic (1835–1902)
- Nicholas Murray Butlerb. 1862USAmerican philosopher, diplomat, and educator (1862-1947)
- William Butler Yeatsb. 1865IEIrish poet and playwright (1865–1939)
- Bill Butlerb. 1921USAmerican cinematographer (1921–2023)
- Geezer Butlerb. 1949GBEnglish bassist (born 1949)
- Dan Butlerb. 1954USAmerican actor
- Judith Butlerb. 1956USAmerican feminist gender studies philosopher (born 1956)
- Gerard Butlerb. 1969GBScottish actor and film producer
- Caron Butlerb. 1980USAmerican basketball player (born 1980)
- Austin Butlerb. 1991USAmerican actor (born 1991)
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 49 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 219K | #108 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 211K | #98 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 208K | #112 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 145 | #125 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- 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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Butler mean, and where does it come from?
- Occupational name meaning wine steward, from Anglo-Norman butuiller, ultimately from Latin buticula ‘bottle’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Butler have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 681 thousand people named Butler in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled butler.
- Where is Butler most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Butler is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 699 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Butler?
- In the United States, the national register counted 218,847 people named Butler in 2010, about 1 in 1.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Butler compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Butler is the 42nd most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Butler?
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/butlerThe 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, “Butler” — the 42nd most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.