Wolter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Patronym zum germ. Rufnamen Walter; o-Variante durch nd
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈwoʊɫtɝ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Wolter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 74K(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 2.6M
- DKDenmark1 in 27K
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 181 (measured from records)
- 1 in 27K (inferred from the name graph)
4,511 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Patronym zum germ. Rufnamen Walter; o-Variante durch nd. Verdumpfung a > o vor ld/lt. 13447 Belege.
Sources 1
- Deutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Wolter 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | — | 4,511 | 1 in 74K | 4.5K | Wolter | 181 |
| BR Brazil | — | 1,480 | 1 in 143K | 1.5K | — | — |
| PL Poland | — | 444 | 1 in 86K | 226 | Wolter | 1 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 368 | 1 in 47K | 3.5K | Wolter | 34 |
| DK Denmark | — | 216 | 1 in 27K | 216 | — | — |
| SE Sweden | — | 214 | 1 in 48K | 214 | — | 19 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 174 | 1 in 48K | 174 | Wolter | 24 |
| NO Norway | — | 96 | 1 in 57K | 96 | — | 10 |
| DE Germany | #221 | ≈31 est. | ≈1 in 2.6M | listed | Wolter | 175 |
4,511 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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: the dfa-band-1 register; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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)
Wolter 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 German, Vokalvariante zu Walter/Walther mit o statt a; zeigt die Monophthongvarianz a/o. 13 447 Träger.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
In German, männl. Vom., niederdeutsche Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Polish, Voltaire (pen name of French philosopher François-Marie Arouet)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Low German and Dutch form of WALTER .
as a word
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)
- Charlotte Wolterb. 1834DEAustrian actress (1834-1897)
- Hans Wolterb. 1911DEGerman physicist (1911-1978)
- Ralf Wolterb. 1926DEGerman actor (1926–2022)
- Jean Wolterb. 1926LULuxembourgian journalist and politician (1926–1980)
- Manfred Wolterb. 1938DEGerman writer, non-fiction author, editor, screenwriter, film scenarist and film director (1938-1999)
- Horst Wolterb. 1942DEGerman footballer
- Michel Wolterb. 1962LULuxembourgish politician
- Thomas Wolterb. 1963DEGerman football player/manager
- Birthe Wolterb. 1981DEGerman actress
- Pia-Sophie Wolterb. 1997DEGerman association football player
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 44 sources across 23 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.5K | #7,384 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.4K | #7,085 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.2K | #7,630 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.5K | #6,430 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 368 | #5,488 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 226 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 226 | #14,670 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames) | 2026 | 218 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 218 | #14,923 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 216 | #2,295 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 214 | #3,912 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 174 | #7,026 |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 are other forms of the name Wolter?
- In the etymology graph, Gauthier, Gautier and Walther are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Wolter?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwoʊɫtɝ/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Wolter mean?
- Recorded meaning: Patronym zum germ. Rufnamen Walter; o-Variante durch nd.
- In which country does Wolter have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 4.5 thousand people named Wolter, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled wolter.
- Where is Wolter most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Wolter is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 27 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Wolter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,511 people named Wolter in 2010, about 1 in 74 thousand residents.
- How common is Wolter compared with other names?
- In Germany, Wolter is the 221st most common surname of 765,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Wolter?
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/wolterThe 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, “Wolter” — the 221st most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.