Lotter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Chlothar; also 'gauge/rogue' sense, or from Latte
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Lotter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 9.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- DEGermany≈1 in 41K
- USUnited States1 in 456K
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.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 184 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.1K (inferred from the name graph)
≈6,200 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Chlothar; also 'gauge/rogue' sense, or from Latte
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Where in the world(measured from records)
Lotter 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | #808 | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 9.1K | — | Lotter | 74 |
| SD Sudan | — | ≈3,000 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | Lotter | 1 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 41K | — | Lotter | 87 |
| US United States | — | 729 | 1 in 456K | 748 | Lotter | 184 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈180 est. | ≈1 in 360K | — | Lotter | 76 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 81K | — | Lotter | 25 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈38 est. | ≈1 in 128K | — | Lotter | 24 |
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 — Surname Frequency 2020. 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)
Lotter 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, Vowel-variation cluster around Lotter/Luder/Loter; the map demonstrates o/u alternation and related umlaut spellings.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Zu ahd. hlūt, as. hlūd; teils auch zu liut 'Volk'. Zeigt o/u-Varianten in Patronymen. 10 Types/1699 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, Berufs-/Übername 'Gaukler' oder 'Taugenichts', zu mhd./mnd. lot(t)er, lod(d)er(er); 853 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
In German, 1699 Belege; Karte zum Haupttonvokalismus, zeigt Monophthongvarianz o/u bzw. ö/ü.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, dialect short form of Lauterbach
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)
- Melchior Lotterb. 1470DEGerman typographer and publisher, c. 1470-1549
- Hieronymus Lotterb. 1497DEGerman politician
- Michael Lotterb. 1499DEGerman printer
- Tobias Conrad Lotterb. 1717DEGerman engraver, cartographer and publisher (1717–1777)
- Georg Lotterb. 1878DEGerman engineer and mechanical engineer (1878-1949)
- Karl Lotterb. 1893DEGerman judge (1893-1963) ; affiant in Hostages Trial (NMT 7)
- Wolf Lotterb. 1962ATGerman journalist and author
- Wayne Lotterb. 1965ZASouth African wildlife conservationist
- Markus Lotterb. 1970DEGerman football player and manager
- Gert Lotterb. 1993NANamibian cricketer
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 19 sources across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 748 | #32,872 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 729 | #31,689 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 725 | #30,412 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- 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
- What does the name Lotter mean, and where does it come from?
- from Chlothar; also 'gauge/rogue' sense, or from Latte Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- In which country does Lotter have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 6.2 thousand people named Lotter in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled lotter.
- How common is the name Lotter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 729 people named Lotter in 2010, about 1 in 456 thousand residents.
- How common is Lotter compared with other names?
- In South Africa, Lotter is the 808th most common surname of 285,788 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Lotter?
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/lotterThe 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, “Lotter” — the 808th most common surname in South Africa. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.