Gunter

surname · Latin script

Meaning: From the Norman personal name Gunter, of Germanic origin, literally ‘battle-army’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ˈɡəntɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Gunter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 14K(measured from records)
  • CACanada≈1 in 19K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 19K

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.

United States (measured from records)

24,513 people, 2010

Sources
435 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 9.7K (inferred from the name graph)

Singapore, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From the Norman personal name Gunter, of Germanic origin, literally ‘battle-army’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Gunter 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.

Where Gunter is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—24,5131 in 14K25KGunter435
GB United Kingdom—≈3,500 est.≈1 in 19KlistedGunter151
CA Canada—≈2,000 est.≈1 in 19K1Gunter110
ZA South Africa—≈1,800 est.≈1 in 31K—Gunter34
IT Italy—≈1,600 est.≈1 in 38K—Gunter11
SG Singapore#764≈640 est.≈1 in 9.7K—Gunter8
CH Switzerland—6161 in 14K616Gunter23

24,513 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Gunter is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • German given name45 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Germany, Austria, United States, Belgium

    Languages: German, English, Spanish

    Also written Günter, Guenter, Gűnter, Gûnter, Gùnter

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Günter

  • French surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Belgium

    Also written Günter, Guñter, Gûnter

  • Swahili surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, Kenya

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho

    Also written Günter

  • Arabic surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Egypt, United Kingdom, Türkiye

    Also written Günter, Gúnter

  • Hindi surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, Switzerland

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Günter

57 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.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Gunter 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 OFr Gontier or OG Gunter 'battle-army'; first attested Gunlerus 1094-1100 NthCh

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • from the Germanic personal name Gunter (Old French Gontier), composed of the elements gund ‘battle’ + hari, heri ‘army’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, (OF Gontier), composed of the Gmc elements gund battle + heri, hari army. Gustin see Austin Var.: Gunther. Gutch see Gough Dims.: Ger.: Gunz, Gun(t)zel, Gunzl(ein), Giinzelmann.

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • In English, A male given name from the Germanic languages used in medieval England.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In German, ) Günther: männl. Vom., Ne­ benform von

    as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen

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)

1400160018002000Edmund Gunter, b. 1581Robert Gunter, b. 1831Ray Gunter, b. 1909Arthur Gunter, b. 1926Phil Gunter, b. 1932Cornell Gunter, b. 1936Rick F. Gunter, b. 1951Jennifer Gunter, b. 1966Chris Gunter, b. 1989Bradley Gunter, b. 1993

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)

FormalDear Mr Gunter,
InformalHi Gunter,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 60 sources across 28 countries.

Official registers attesting Gunter
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201025K#1,457
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200024K#1,368
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202023K#1,501
GB United KingdomA Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988)———

Reference works 6

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 Gunter mean, and where does it come from?
From the Norman personal name Gunter, of Germanic origin, literally ‘battle-army’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Gunter?
A machine transcription gives /ˈɡəntɝ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Gunter have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 25 thousand people named Gunter, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gunter.
What are other forms of the name Gunter?
In the etymology graph, Gunther and Gunder are forms of the same name in other languages.
How common is the name Gunter?
In the United States, the national register counted 24,513 people named Gunter in 2010, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.
How common is Gunter compared with other names?
In Singapore, Gunter is the 764th most common surname of 78,292 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Gunter?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/gunter

The 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, “Gunter” — the 764th most common surname in Singapore. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Gunter parses inside a full name →