Wachter
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Wachter is a surname, most frequently recorded in Germany. In Liechtenstein it is the 37th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and German, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: a guard, a sentinel.
- ATAustria1 in 4.1K◐
- DEGermany1 in 6.1K
- CHSwitzerland1 in 13K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈6.3K ●
- Sources
- 269 ●
- 1 in 13K ◐
across 15 countries
59K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Spellings & scripts●
2 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Wächter in FI Finland, NO Norway.
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●
a guard, a sentinel
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 16 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 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | #443 | 18,133 | 16K rec. | — | — | Wachter | 132 |
| US United States | — | 4,601 | 35K rec. | 1 in 72K | 4.6K | Wachter | 269 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 1,562 | 1.5K rec. | — | listed | Wachter | 39 |
| AT Austria | #252 | 1,559 | 880 rec. | — | — | Wachter | 80 |
| CA Canada | — | 750 | 725 rec. | — | — | Wachter | 35 |
| AU Australia | — | 673 | 639 rec. | — | — | Wachter | 38 |
| CH Switzerland | #828 | 657△ | 250 rec. | 1 in 13K | 657 | Wachter | 35 |
| BR Brazil | — | 510 | 0 rec. | 1 in 415K | 510 | — | 1 |
| LI Liechtenstein | #37 | 292 | 8 rec. | — | 124 | Wachter | 25 |
| IT Italy | — | 236 | 259 rec. | — | — | Wachter | 12 |
| CN China | — | 191 | 201 rec. | — | — | Wachter | 2 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 133 | 201 rec. | 1 in 130K | 133 | Wachter | 30 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English36K52%
- German16K23%
- Dutch5.2K7%
- French3.6K5%
- Spanish2.2K3%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 36,253 | 52% |
| German | 16,177 | 23% |
| Dutch | 5,164 | 7% |
| French | 3,637 | 5% |
| Spanish | 2,244 | 3% |
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●
Wachter is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Western Frisian, person who keeps watch, guard
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In gmw-ecg, guard (person who guards)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In wym, guard
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.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1891 | 33 |
| 1901 | 55 |
| 1911 | 57 |
| 1921 | 53 |
| 1931 | 75 |
| 1941 | 98 |
| 1951 | 100 |
| 1961 | 86 |
| 1971 | 106 |
| 1981 | 73 |
| 1991 | 76 |
FR INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) — 11 years between 1891–1991. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Ed Wachterb. 1883USAmerican basketball player-coach
- Sandra Wachterb. 1901ATdata ethics, artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms and regulation researcher and professor
- Kenneth W Wachterb. 1947GBresearcher
- Herbert Wachterb. 1950ATAustrian cross-country skier
- Robert M. Wachterb. 1957USAmerican physician and academic
- Graziella Marok-Wachterb. 1965LILiechtenstein politician
- Anita Wachterb. 1967ATAustrian alpine skier
- Matt Wachterb. 1976USAmerican musician
- Adam Wachterb. 1983USAmerican composer
- Alexander Wachterb. 1995ATAustrian bicycle racer
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 30 sources across 20 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.6K | #7,247 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.5K | #6,866 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.1K | #7,718 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 657 | #1,919 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 398 | #20,823 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 133 | #15,065 |
| LI Liechtenstein | Statistik Liechtenstein — Familiennamenstatistik (surnames) | 2020 | 124 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1971 | 106 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1951 | 100 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1941 | 98 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 92 | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1961 | 86 | — |
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 · 40 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Wachter?
- We estimate roughly 6.3 thousand people bear Wachter (counting its spellings and scripts) across 15 countries in our records.
- In which country does Wachter have the most bearers?
- Wachter is most frequently recorded in Germany, where it is most often spelled wachter.
- How common is Wachter compared with other names?
- In Germany, Wachter is the 443rd most common surname of 734,811 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Wachter mean?
- Recorded meaning: a guard, a sentinel
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/wachterThe 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, “Wachter” — the 443rd most common surname in Germany. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.