Kotter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Toponymic surname from a dwelling/house site; bearers: 556
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkɑtɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kotter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country. In Cook Islands it is the 4th most common surname.
- DEGermany≈1 in 34K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 385K
- TCTurks & Caicos Islands≈1 in 20K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kotter itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 194 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 20K (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,400 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Turks & Caicos Islands, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Koetter in GB United Kingdom, CK Cook Islands, BS Bahamas and Kötter in DE Germany.
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.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Toponymic surname from a dwelling/house site; bearers: 556.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kotter 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 34K | — | Kötter | 77 |
| US United States | — | 865 | 1 in 385K | 865 | Kotter | 194 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈120 est. | ≈1 in 531K | — | Kotter | 2 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈77 est. | ≈1 in 115K | — | Kotter | 22 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈68 est. | ≈1 in 970K | — | Koetter | 24 |
| EE Estonia | — | ≈25 est. | ≈1 in 50K | 40 | Kotter | 3 |
| BS Bahamas | — | ≈6 est. | ≈1 in 53K | — | Koetter | 1 |
| TC Turks & Caicos Islands | #738 | ≈3 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Kotter | 1 |
| CK Cook Islands | #4 | — | — | — | Koetter | 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; the ee-stat-nimed register. 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)
Kotter 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, 1. habitational name for someone from any of several places in Germany named Kotten. 2. variant of Kotter (see Koetter).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In German, cage, can, prison cell
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Toponymischer Wohnstättenname aus/in/bei der Kate(n) 'kleine Behausung'; oft mit Apokope von -e.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, Toponymic surname from a Wohnstättenname to mhd. kot(e), mnd. kōt(e), kotte 'Hütte, kleines Haus'; 556 tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
In German, from bayer. Kotter ‘Schuppen, Gefängnis’, from Kote
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)
- Hans Kotterb. 1485DEGerman composer
- Franciszek Kotterb. 1813ATpolitician
- Ludwig Kotterb. 1920DEGerman veterinarian (1920–2012)
- Klaus Kotterb. 1934DEGerman bobsleigh official (1934–2010)
- John P. Kotterb. 1947USAmerican economist (1947-)
- Elmar Kotterb. 1963DEresearcher ORCID ID = 0000-0001-9022-6000
- Hans Kotterb. 1966DEGerman artist
- Margus Kotterb. 1970EEEstonian football referee (born 1970)
- Mark KotterCanadian neurosurgeon
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 17 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 865 | #27,783 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 837 | #29,976 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 806 | #28,005 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 40 | #2,529 |
| EE Estonia | Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed) | — | 28 | #3,928 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- What does the name Kotter mean, and where does it come from?
- Toponymic surname from a dwelling/house site; bearers: 556. Recorded by Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte.
- What are other forms of the name Kotter?
- In the etymology graph, Cot is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Kotter?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑtɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Kotter have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.4 thousand people named Kotter in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kötter.
- How common is the name Kotter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 865 people named Kotter in 2010, about 1 in 385 thousand residents.
- How common is Kotter compared with other names?
- In Cook Islands, Kotter is the 4th most common surname of 473 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kotter?
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/kotterThe 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, “Kotter” — the 4th most common surname in Cook Islands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.