Koetter
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Koetter is a surname, most frequently recorded in Germany. In Cook Islands it is the 2nd most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: status name for a farm laborer who lived in a cottage or hovel with no land, from an agent derivative of Middle High German and Middle Low German kote ‘cottage’, ‘hovel’ (see Koth).
- DEGermany1 in 20K◐
- USUnited States1 in 385K
- CKCook Islands1 in 639
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈935 ●
- Sources
- 171 ●
- 1 in 385K ◐
across 6 countries
17K records
Official registry-verified
United States
Spellings & scripts●
Locally spelled Kotter in US United States, AU Australia, NL Netherlands and 8 more and Kötter in DE Germany, ES Spain.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
status name for a farm laborer who lived in a cottage or hovel with no land, from an agent derivative of Middle High German and Middle Low German kote ‘cottage’, ‘hovel’ (see Koth).
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | 5,555 | 5K rec. | — | — | Kötter | 73 |
| US United States | — | 865 | 11K rec. | 1 in 385K | 865 | Kotter | 171 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 292 | 284 rec. | — | — | Koetter | 18 |
| AU Australia | — | 166 | 163 rec. | — | — | Kotter | 8 |
| CA Canada | — | 164 | 161 rec. | — | — | Koetter | 13 |
| IT Italy | — | 85 | 101 rec. | — | — | Kotter | 2 |
| AT Austria | — | 69 | 40 rec. | — | — | Kotter | 21 |
| SG Singapore | — | 59 | 61 rec. | — | — | Koetter | 1 |
| CK Cook Islands | #2 | 49 | 165 rec. | — | — | Koetter | 1 |
| UA Ukraine | — | 40 | 44 rec. | — | — | Kotter | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 34 | 69 rec. | 1 in 508K | 34 | Kotter | 10 |
| IL Israel | — | 33 | 32 rec. | — | — | Kotter | 7 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English4.8K65%
- German1.8K25%
- Spanish1612%
- 991%
- Portuguese781%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 4,767 | 65% |
| German | 1,812 | 25% |
| Spanish | 161 | 2% |
| 99 | 1% | |
| Portuguese | 78 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Notable people with this name●
- Jim Koetterb. 1937USAmerican football coach (1937–2025)
- Michael Koetterb. 1974DEeconomist (Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH); Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg)
- Henriette KoetterDEEconomist from Germany
- Brent KoetterUScollege basketball player (1981–1983) Idaho State
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●
Attested in 9 sources across 3 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 732 | #33,503 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 669 | #33,990 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 609 | #35,053 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 7 | #79,838 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 6 | #75,329 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames (Census 2010 + voter-file supplement) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 6 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Koetter?
- We estimate roughly 935 people bear Koetter (counting its spellings and scripts) across 6 countries in our records.
- In which country does Koetter have the most bearers?
- Koetter is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled kötter.
- How common is Koetter compared with other names?
- In Cook Islands, Koetter is the 2nd most common surname of 291 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Koetter mean?
- Recorded meaning: status name for a farm laborer who lived in a cottage or hovel with no land, from an agent derivative of Middle High German and Middle Low German kote ‘cottage’, ‘hovel’ (see Koth).
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/koetterThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
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, “Koetter” — the 2nd most common surname in Cook Islands. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.