Kolter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: 1. metonymic occupational name for a quilt maker, from an agent derivative of Middle High German kulter, kolter ‘quilt’ (Latin culcitra)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈkoʊɫtɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kolter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- DEGermany≈1 in 96K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 937K
- EEEstonia≈1 in 117K
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
- 138 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 96K (inferred from the name graph)
≈4,300 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
1. metonymic occupational name for a quilt maker, from an agent derivative of Middle High German kulter, kolter ‘quilt’ (Latin culcitra). 2. from Middle High German, Middle Low German kolter ‘plowshare’ (Latin culter), hence a metonymic occupational name for a maker of plows, a plowman, or possibly for an arable farmer.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kolter 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 | ≈4,300 est. | ≈1 in 323K | — | Kolter | 2 |
| DE Germany | ≈840 est. | ≈1 in 96K | — | Kolter | 70 |
| US United States | 355 | 1 in 937K | 644 | Kolter | 138 |
| PL Poland | 107 | 1 in 358K | 58 | Kolter | 1 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈62 est. | ≈1 in 1.1M | — | Kolter | 25 |
| AT Austria | ≈34 est. | ≈1 in 259K | — | Kolter | 8 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈32 est. | ≈1 in 154K | — | Kolter | 1 |
| EE Estonia | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 117K | 9 | — | 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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed). 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)
Kolter 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.
In German, blanket, quilt, bedspread
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, from lat. culcitra 'quilt, coverlet'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Joseph P. Kolterb. 1926USAmerican politician
- Werner Kolterb. 1949DEGerman politician
- Roberto Kolterb. 1953GTProfessor of Microbiology, Emeritus at Harvard Medical School
- Marianne Kolterb. 1955DEGerman politician
- Zico KolterUSAcademic and AI safety expert
- Robert KolterDEDr. rer. nat. Technische Universität Kaiserslautern 2009
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 18 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 355 | #57,372 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 345 | #62,640 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 327 | #58,130 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 58 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 58 | #45,353 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 49 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 49 | #50,492 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 9 | #11,532 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 9 | #11,900 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Kolter come from?
- 1. metonymic occupational name for a quilt maker, from an agent derivative of Middle High German kulter, kolter ‘quilt’ (Latin culcitra). 2. Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Kolter?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkoʊɫtɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Kolter mean?
- Recorded meaning: 1. metonymic occupational name for a quilt maker, from an agent derivative of Middle High German kulter, kolter ‘quilt’ (Latin culcitra).
- In which country does Kolter have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 4.3 thousand people named Kolter in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kolter.
- How common is the name Kolter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 355 people named Kolter in 2010, about 1 in 937 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Kolter?
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/kolterThe 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, “Kolter”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.