Butter

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Butter is one spelling over 3 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.

• English61%

  Either an occupational name for a maker/seller of butter, or a nickname from Middle English butor ‘bittern’.

  as a name·Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

  From Gaelic bothar ‘road’, likely for a family living by a drove road; first noted in 1331 and associated with Perthshire and the edge of the Highlands.

  as a name·Scottish Surnames

  from ME botor / OFr butor ‘bittern’, probably a nickname; first attested Henry Butor 1169 P (Yorkshire)

  as a name·A Dictionary of English Surnames

  A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).

  as a word·kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

• German12%

  eher Übername oder indirekter Berufsname zu mhd. buter 'Butter'; 422

  as a name·Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen

• Spanish5.9%

  No dictionary in our sources glosses Butter in Spanish.

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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Butter, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.

• Mango
• Candy
• Honey
• Chai
• Apple

From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.

Butter is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• Spanish surname3 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina

  Languages: Spanish, Portuguese

  Also written Bútter

• a separate name2 spellings in the group

  Also written Bütter

• French surname2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in France, United States, Netherlands

  Also written Büttèr

• Thai surname17 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Thailand, United States, India, Netherlands

  Languages: Thai, Lao

  Also written Better, เบทเทอร์, บัตเตอร์, เบ็ทเทอร์, Bitter

• Polish surname2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in United Kingdom, Poland, United States

  Also written Bütter

41 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Butter is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

• In Italian, variante regional de Botter

  as a name·Dicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

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.

• Nathaniel Butterb. 1583English publisher
• John Butterb. 1791GBEnglish ophthalmic surgeon
• Michel Butterb. 1985NLDutch long-distance runner

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).

26 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 16 countries.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

What does the name Butter mean, and where does it come from?

Either an occupational name for a maker/seller of butter, or a nickname from Middle English butor ‘bittern’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].

What are other forms of the name Butter?

In the etymology graph, Buro is a form of the same name in other languages.

How do you pronounce Butter?

It depends on the language: in English /ˈbatə/ (Wiktionary); in German /ˈbʊtɐ/ (Wiktionary); in Spanish /butteɾ/. Transcriptions are machine-generated except where a dictionary is named.

Which countries have the most people with the surname Butter?

In the Netherlands, the national register counted about 1.2 thousand people named Butter, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled butter. After it come Germany, United States, Nigeria and United Kingdom; the country table on this page ranks them.

Where is Butter most common?

Butter is densest in the Netherlands, where the national register counts about 1 in 14 thousand people carrying it.

How common is the name Butter?

In the Netherlands, the national register counted 1,235 people named Butter in 2007, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.