Hilt
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Old English personal name Helte/Helto; first attested William filius Helte 1173 P (K)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/hɪlt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hilt is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 83K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 104K
- BZBelize≈1 in 17K
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)
- Sources
- 257 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 17K (inferred from the name graph)
≈26,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Belize, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Existing in the Müllheim area, in Sulzburg, South Baden 1809.
Sources 1
- The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
How Hilt is read(measured from records)
Hilt is one spelling over 4 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.
- English72%
Old English personal name Helte/Helto; first attested William filius Helte 1173 P (K)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
The handle of a sword, consisting of grip, guard, and pommel, designed to facilitate use of the blade and afford protection to the hand.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French8.0%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hilt in French.
- Spanish7.1%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Hilt in Spanish.
- German5.4%
from a short form of Hildebrand or other compound Germanic names formed with hild ‘strife’, ‘battle’ as the first element.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Kurzformtyp aus Hilde-/Hildebrand; stark belegt (414), vorwiegend Saarland und Rheinland-Pfalz. Konsonantenvariation: ld > lt.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hilt 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 | — | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 54K | — | Hilt | 3 |
| US United States | — | 3,185 | 1 in 104K | 3.2K | Hilt | 257 |
| DZ Algeria | — | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 36K | — | Hilt | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈970 est. | ≈1 in 83K | — | Hilt | 80 |
| FR France | — | ≈730 est. | ≈1 in 93K | 84 | — | 3 |
| NO Norway | — | 148 | 1 in 37K | 148 | Hilt | 12 |
| BZ Belize | #210 | ≈23 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Hilt | 1 |
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; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000). 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)
Hilt is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Existing in the Müllheim area, in Sulzburg, South Baden 1809.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History
In ang, hilt, handle
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)
- Carl Hiltb. 1835DEGerman mining engineer
- Christian Hiltb. 1888NONorwegian politician
- Odd Hiltb. 1915NONorwegian sculptor (1916–1986)
- Günther Hiltb. 1918DEGerman officer and Knight's Cross recipient (1918-1944)
- Wenche Hiltb. 1920NObadminton player
- Ragnhild Hiltb. 1945NONorwegian actress
- Brim Hiltb. 1955NONorwegian writer and publisher (1955–2018)
- Annette Hiltb. 1966DEGerman badminton player
- Simone Hiltb. 1969DEGerman badminton player
- Patrice Hiltb. 1973FRFrench politician
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)
Attested in 24 sources across 13 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.2K | #10,119 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3K | #9,835 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.9K | #10,498 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 148 | #10,685 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 132 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 122 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 119 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1931 | 95 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1921 | 88 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 84 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 84 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 81 | — |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
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 Hilt come from?
- Existing in the Müllheim area, in Sulzburg, South Baden 1809. Recorded by The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History.
- How do you pronounce Hilt?
- A machine transcription gives /hɪlt/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Hilt mean?
- In English, Old English personal name Helte/Helto; first attested William filius Helte 1173 P (K)
- In which country does Hilt have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 26 thousand people named Hilt in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hilt.
- How common is the name Hilt?
- In the United States, the national register counted 3,185 people named Hilt in 2010, about 1 in 104 thousand residents.
- How common is Hilt compared with other names?
- In Belize, Hilt is the 210th most common surname of 11,408 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hilt?
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/hiltThe 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, “Hilt” — the 210th most common surname in Belize. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.