Walter

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: From the male personal name Walter, brought by the Normans; ultimately Germanic, literally ‘rule-army’

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Walter is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country, where it is the 45th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • DEGermany≈1 in 268(inferred from the name graph)
  • ATAustria≈1 in 324
  • ITItaly≈1 in 788

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.

Germany (inferred from the name graph)

≈300,000 people, est.

#300 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

Sources
586 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 244 (inferred from the name graph)

Argentina, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

From the male personal name Walter, brought by the Normans; ultimately Germanic, literally ‘rule-army’.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.

How Walter is read(measured from records)

Walter is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.

  • English54%

    From the male personal name Walter, brought by the Normans; ultimately Germanic, literally ‘rule-army’.

    as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

    from Old English Walter ‘mighty army’; introduced into England in the reign of the Confessor

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

    Germanic ‘rule folk’; prince of Aquitaine in legend, introduced to Ireland by the Normans.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • Spanish25%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Walter in Spanish.

  • German7.9%

    Germanic patronymic from *wald- ‘rule’ + *hari ‘army’; plate shows vowel variation a~o (Walter/Wolter) and related forms.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus

    from the Germanic name stem Wald- + hari 'army'; often with later suffixes

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Walter 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.

Where Walter is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
DE Germany#45≈300,000 est.≈1 in 268listedWalter272
US United States#134244,8471 in 1.4K244KWalter586
AR Argentina—≈190,000 est.≈1 in 2443.1KWalter7
PE Peru—≈110,000 est.≈1 in 29890KWalter82
IT Italy#252≈79,000 est.≈1 in 788—Walter138
EC Ecuador—38,0551 in 44438K—47
AT Austria#46≈27,000 est.≈1 in 324926Walter169

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 — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; RENIEC — DNI population names; INEC — civil registry names; Statistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Walter is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name44 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, United States

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Wálter, Wältër, Wáltér, Waltér, Wàlter

  • French given name5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Belgium, Canada

    Languages: French, Catalan

    Also written Wãltër, Wâltër, Wálter

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Walṭer, Wálter

  • Polish given name35 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, Croatia, Czechia

    Languages: Polish, Croatian, Czech

    Also written Valter, Валтер, Walther, Val'Ter, Wàltèr

  • Portuguese given name103 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Brazil, Russia, Italy, United States

    Languages: Portuguese, Russian, Italian

    Also written Valter, Вальтер, Валтер, Val'Ter, Վալտեր

  • Finnish given name3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Finland, Switzerland, United Kingdom

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Wálter

110 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Walter is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • Instead of the name “Wolf”, name of German origin, only to find in Johlingen and Bretten, since 1827 in Baden.

    as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History

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)

1400160018002000Walter Raleigh, b. 1552Walter Brennan, b. 1894Gustav Heinemann, b. 1899Walter Houser Brattain, b. 1902Luis Walter Alvarez, b. 1911Christian Wulff, b. 1959Eros Ramazzotti, b. 1963Ray Allen, b. 1975Eden Hazard, b. 1991Joshua Kimmich, b. 1995
  • Walter Raleighb. 1552GBEnglish statesman, soldier and writer (1552–1618)
  • Walter Brennanb. 1894USAmerican actor (1894–1974)
  • Gustav Heinemannb. 1899DEnot in their usual nameGerman politician, President of Germany 1969–1974 (1899–1976)
  • Walter Houser Brattainb. 1902USAmerican physicist (1902–1987)
  • Luis Walter Alvarezb. 1911USAmerican experimental physicist, inventor, and professor (1911–1988)
  • Christian Wulffb. 1959DEnot in their usual name10th German Federal President
  • Eros Ramazzottib. 1963ITnot in their usual nameItalian musician (born 1963)
  • Ray Allenb. 1975USnot in their usual nameAmerican basketball player (born 1975)
  • Eden Hazardb. 1991BEnot in their usual nameBelgian footballer (born 1991)
  • Joshua Kimmichb. 1995DEnot in their usual nameGerman association football player (born 1995)

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 145 sources across 73 countries.

Official registers attesting Walter
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020244K#227
PE PeruRENIEC — DNI population names201990K#24
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names202438K#59
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20251.4K—
AT AustriaStatistik Austria — STATatlas Vornamen WFS (per-name time series 1984–2024)2024926#819
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020426#227
AR ArgentinaRENAPER — Nombres de nacimientos (2012–present)2024125#674

Reference works 11

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 Walter mean, and where does it come from?
From the male personal name Walter, brought by the Normans; ultimately Germanic, literally ‘rule-army’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
Is Walter a male or female name?
Walter is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Walter have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 299 thousand people named Walter in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled walter.
What are other forms of the name Walter?
In the etymology graph, Valter, Wouter and Wout are forms of the same name in other languages; Wally and Walt are recorded short or pet forms.
How common is the name Walter?
In the United States, the national register counted 244,847 people named Walter in 2020, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
How common is Walter compared with other names?
In Germany, Walter is the 45th most common given name of 156,202 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Walter?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/walter

The 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, “Walter” — the 45th most common given name in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Walter parses inside a full name →