Souter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: shoemaker, cobbler, from Middle English soutere, ultimately from Latin suere 'to sew' (Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history])
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 8 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈsjuːtə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Souter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 35K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 44K
- BEBelgium≈1 in 55Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). 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.
- United Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 225 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 35K (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,600 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce Souter
- English:/ˈsjuːtə/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Middle Englishsoutere(measured from records)
- Latinsuere(measured from records)
shoemaker, cobbler, from Middle English soutere, ultimately from Latin suere 'to sew'.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Souter is found
(measured from records)Souter 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 44K | 1.8K | Souter | 155 |
| US United States | 1,063 | 1 in 313K | 1.2K | Souter | 225 |
| AU Australia | ≈770 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | Souter | 126 |
| CA Canada | ≈320 est. | ≈1 in 128K | — | Souter | 87 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈270 est. | ≈1 in 237K | — | Souter | 20 |
| BE Belgium | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 55K | — | Souter | 17 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈56 est. | ≈1 in 95K | — | Souter | 20 |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral 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)Souter is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Occupational name from Scots soutar, ‘shoemaker’; recorded at least as early as 1214.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, A shoemaker or cobbler.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, David, US Supreme Court Justice
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In Dutch, psalter
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)- David Souterb. 1939USAmerican lawyer and jurist (1939–2025)
- Jim Southb. 1939USnot in their usual nameAmerican pornographer, talent scout, booking agent and porn producer (1939-2020)
- Joe Southb. 1940USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, songwriter and guitarist (1940–2012)
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)14 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 8 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Souter mean, and where does it come from?
- shoemaker, cobbler, from Middle English soutere, ultimately from Latin suere 'to sew'. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Souter?
- In English /ˈsjuːtə/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Souter?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.6 thousand people named Souter in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled souter. After it come United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name Souter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,063 people named Souter in 2010, about 1 in 313 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Souter?
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/souterThe 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, “Souter” — ranked 3965th in the United Kingdom (Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register)). Data snapshot 2026-10-13.