Ritter
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Ritter is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: knight.
- SGSingapore1 in 6.8K◐
- GBUnited Kingdom1 in 8K
- AUAustralia1 in 9.4K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈48K ●
- 3 ●
- Sources
- 424 ●
- 1 in 2.9K ◐
across 12 countries
recorded for this name
401K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Rutter in GB United Kingdom, BR Brazil, CH Switzerland and 7 more.
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●
knight
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #739 | 33,252 | 327K rec. | 1 in 10K | 33K | Ritter | 424 |
| GB United Kingdom | #722 | 29,166 | 26K rec. | — | listed | Rutter | 161 |
| BR Brazil | — | 9,358△ | 287 rec. | 1 in 23K | 9.4K | Rutter | 39 |
| AU Australia | #904 | 8,994 | 8.4K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 121 |
| CA Canada | #892 | 7,286 | 7.2K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 101 |
| CH Switzerland | — | 2,863△ | 498 rec. | 1 in 2.9K | 2.9K | Rutter | 56 |
| IT Italy | — | 2,401 | 2.5K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 21 |
| DE Germany | — | 1,647 | 1.5K rec. | — | — | Rutter | 63 |
| SG Singapore | #442 | 1,422 | 1.5K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 15 |
| IL Israel | — | 1,065 | 1.3K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 12 |
| RU Russia | — | 945 | 1.1K rec. | — | — | Ritter | 17 |
| IE Ireland | — | 809 | 820 rec. | — | — | Ritter | 22 |
Roughly 33K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 10K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English315K65%
- German73K15%
- Portuguese20K4%
- Spanish17K4%
- French17K4%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 315,022 | 65% |
| German | 72,895 | 15% |
| Portuguese | 20,283 | 4% |
| Spanish | 17,466 | 4% |
| French | 17,162 | 4% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Ritter 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, Belegt die d/t-Varianz; Berufsname 'Ritter'. Bearer count: 15794.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, dd/tt-Vergleichsname im Niederländischen; Grundform im Vergleich zu Ridder.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In English, John, US actor; German beer
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In German, Zu mhd. ritter, mnd. ridder ‘Ritter’; aus mnl. riddere entlehnt, mit dentalem tt (Anlehnung an mhd. rîter). Karte zeigt dd/tt-Variation. 38 Types/15794 Tokens.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In German, from the noun 'Ritter' 'knight'
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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1997 | 5 |
| 2009 | 9 |
| 2010 | 5 |
| 2011 | 11 |
| 2012 | 5 |
| 2013 | 10 |
| 2014 | 9 |
| 2015 | 7 |
| 2016 | 17 |
| 2017 | 7 |
| 2018 | 11 |
| 2019 | 5 |
| 2020 | 8 |
| 2021 | 5 |
| 2024 | 8 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 15 years between 1997–2024. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Johann Wilhelm Ritterb. 1776DEGerman chemist, physicist and philosopher
- Carl Ritterb. 1779DEGerman geographer (1779-1859)
- Gerhard Ritterb. 1888DEGerman historian (1888-1967)
- Thelma Ritterb. 1902USAmerican actress and vaudevillian (1902-1969)
- Tex Ritterb. 1905USAmerican country musician (1905–1974)
- John Ritterb. 1948USAmerican actor (1948–2003)
- Bill Ritterb. 1956USAmerican politician
- Paul Ritterb. 1966GBEnglish actor (1966–2021)
- Jason Ritterb. 1980USAmerican actor
- Krysten Ritterb. 1981USAmerican actress (born 1981)
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 39 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 33K | #1,053 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 33K | #970 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 32K | #1,086 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 9.4K | #1,382 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 2.9K | #283 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 742 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 464 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 435 | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 429 | #1,022 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 408 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1981 | 358 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 350 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- 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 · 124 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Ritter?
- We estimate roughly 48 thousand people bear Ritter (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.
- In which country does Ritter have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 33 thousand people bear Ritter in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled ritter.
- Where is Ritter most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Ritter is densest in Switzerland — about 1 in 2.9 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is Ritter compared with other names?
- In the United States, Ritter is the 739th most common surname of 7,257,200 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Ritter mean?
- Recorded meaning: knight
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ritterThe 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, “Ritter” — the 739th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.