Heister
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Heister is a surname written in the Latin script, most frequently recorded in the United States. Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from mhd.
- DEGermany
- USUnited States
- NLNetherlands
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)
Toponymic surname from mhd. heister 'young beech'; also from settlement names Heister-. 1417 bearers.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 2 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)
Heister 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 German, from 'young tree', esp. beech; also Low German 'magpie'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name with Heister-; bearer count 1417.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
who lived by a conspicuous beech tree, MLG hester. Heichman see Hoch Var.: Hester. Heidecke see Heydrich Dim.: Fr.: Hetreau.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In German, young foliage tree of a height between 1 and 2.5 metres
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)
- Sigbert Heisterb. 1646ATAustrian field marshal
- Lorenz Heisterb. 1683DEGerman botanist and doctor (1683-1758)
- Chris Heisterb. 1950SESwedish politician
- Bodil Heisterb. 1952DKDanish composer and musician
- Werner Heisterb. 1961DEGerman economist
- Danny Heisterb. 1971NLDutch table tennis player
- Timo Heisterb. 1983DEresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0002-8137-3903
- Florian Heisterb. 1997DEGerman association football player
- Stephen HeisterUSAmerican aerospace engineer
- Arno HeisterDEparticle physicist
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 18 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 765 | #32,272 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 724 | #30,443 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 595 | #37,442 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 176 | #11,771 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 20 | #24,994 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 14 | #47,506 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 10 | #38,903 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 6 | #92,487 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 2 | — |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 2 | #188,401 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 2 | #335,539 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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
- Where does the name Heister come from?
- Toponymic surname from mhd. heister 'young beech'; also from settlement names Heister-. 1417 bearers. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- What does the name Heister mean?
- Recorded meaning: Toponymic surname from mhd.
- In which country does Heister have the most bearers?
- Heister is most frequently recorded in the United States.
What do you want to know about Heister?
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/heisterThe same 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), 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, “Heister”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.