Colter

3,250 people in the United States were counted with the surname Colter in the 2020 census, making it the 9,566th most common in the country. That is about one person in 92,000.

By the numbers

People: 3,250
Rank: 9,566th
How common: 1 in 92,000
Per 100,000: 1.1

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Colter described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 52.5%
Black, not Hispanic 36.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 6.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Colter

Mike Colter (born 1976)American actor
Mary Colter (1869–1958)American architect and designer
Jessi Colter (born 1943)American country singer

People named Colter with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Colter

Also a first name

Colter has been given to 10,705 American babies as a first name since 1971, peaking in 2025. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.