Köhler
surname · Latin script
Meaning: charcoal burner (person) (kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations))
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 12 countries · latest register: BFS, 2024
/ˈkøːlɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) German · from Wiktionary
Köhler is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 46th most common surname. Köhler is also written โคหเลอร in Thai.
- DEGermany≈1 in 1.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- CHSwitzerland1 in 1.2K
- AGAntigua & Barbuda≈1 in 5.4Kfew records
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 Köhler itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 395 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈75,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Germany, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Köhler in other scripts: Thai
(measured from records)One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Kohler in US United States, CH Switzerland, AT Austria and 1 more.
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.
How to pronounce Köhler
- German:/ˈkøːlɐ/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)charcoal burner (person)
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Köhler is found
(measured from records)Köhler 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 | #46 | ≈75,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | — | Köhler | 195 |
| US United States | — | 19,368as Koehler | 1 in 17K | 19K | Kohler | 395 |
| CH Switzerland | #47 | 6,865 | 1 in 1.2K | 6.9K | Kohler | 93 |
| BR Brazil | — | 3,750 | 1 in 56K | 3.8K | — | 4 |
| FR France | — | ≈3,400 est. | ≈1 in 20K | 415 | Köhler | 6 |
| AT Austria | #253 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Kohler | 77 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,092 | 1 in 9.3K | 1.1K | Köhler | 29 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #119 | ≈17 est. | ≈1 in 5.4K | — | Kohler | 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; BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (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)Köhler 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, Berufsname zu mhd. kôlere/koler ‘Köhler, Holzkohlenbrenner’; Karte zeigt o/ö-, a/u- und ch-/k-Varianten. Belegzahlen: Österreich Köhler:Kohler:Koller 717:604:4166; Schweiz 292:3479:3338.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu Köhler ‘Holzkohlenbrenner’; 38622 Token. Die Karte zeigt die Verteilung der Umlaut- und nicht umgelauteten Vokalvarianten.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu mittelhochdeutsch köhler, 'Köhler/Charcoal burner'; die Karte zeigt Monophthongvarianz o/ö. 35073 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu mhd. koläre / mnd. koler ‘Köhler’; die Karte zeigt o/ö-Variation, mit Umlaut und umlautlosen Formen.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufsname zu Köhler 'Kohlenbrenner'; Platte zeigt Vokalvariation Kö-/Kö-/Kä-/Ko-/Fo- im Familiennamenbestand.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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)- Wolfgang Köhlerb. 1887DEGerman-American psychologist and phenomenologist (1887-1967)
- Ilse Kochb. 1906DEnot in their usual nameGerman war criminal, wife of camp commandant Karl-Otto Koch (1906–1967)
- Horst Köhlerb. 1943DEGerman politician (CDU); president of Germany, 2004–2010
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)21 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 12 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Köhler mean, and where does it come from?
- charcoal burner (person) Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Köhler?
- In German /ˈkøːlɐ/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Köhler?
- Mondonomo estimates about 75 thousand people named Köhler in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled köhler. After it come United States, Switzerland, Brazil and France; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Köhler?
- In Switzerland, the national register counted 6,865 people named Köhler in 2024, about 1 in 1.2 thousand residents.
- How common is Köhler compared with other names?
- In Germany, Köhler is the 46th most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Köhler?
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/k%C3%B6hlerThe 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, “Köhler” — the 46th most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.