Collier
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OE col 'coal'; a maker or seller of charcoal; first attested Ranulf colier a11SO DC (L)
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/kɑliɚ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Collier is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 3.7K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 4.6K
- IEIreland≈1 in 4.7K
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
- 490 (measured from records)
- 1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)
56,380 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Grenada
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from OE col 'coal'; a maker or seller of charcoal; first attested Ranulf colier a11SO DC (L).
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Collier 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 | #494 | 56,380 | 1 in 5.9K | 56K | Collier | 490 |
| GB United Kingdom | #405 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.6K | listed | Collier | 238 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈6,500 est. | ≈1 in 16K | — | Collier | 12 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈6,400 est. | ≈1 in 42K | — | Collier | 21 |
| CA Canada | #609 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | 1 | Collier | 176 |
| AU Australia | #572 | ≈4,300 est. | ≈1 in 5.9K | — | Collier | 174 |
| NZ New Zealand | #302 | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 3.7K | — | Collier | 101 |
| IE Ireland | #453 | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 4.7K | — | Collier | 71 |
| GD Grenada | — | 45 | 1 in 2.5K | 45 | — | 3 |
56,380 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: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025. 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)
Collier 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 English, coal or a gatherer or seller of coal, from ME cole (char)coal (see Cole 2 and Coleman 3) + the agent suffix -(i)er. Vars.: Collye(a)r, Colyer, Colliar(d), Colleer. Equiv. (not cogn.): Czech: Uhlir.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, A person in the business or occupation of producing or distributing coal (any of several types of carbon fuel).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, charcoal-burner or gatherer of coal.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In French, a necklace, string-shaped jewel worn around the neck
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Danish, indefinite plural of collie
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.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- John Collierb. 1850GBBritish Pre-Raphaelite painter and author (1850-1934)
- William Collier Sr.b. 1864USAmerican actor, screenwriter and director (1864-1944)
- James William Collierb. 1872USAmerican politician (1872-1933)
- Constance Collierb. 1878GBBritish actress (1878-1955)
- William Collier Jr.b. 1902USAmerican actor (1902–1987)
- Lois Collierb. 1919USAmerican actress (1919-1999)
- Ann Millerb. 1923USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and dancer (1923–2004)
- Jason Collierb. 1977USAmerican basketball player (1977–2005)
- Jacob Collierb. 1994GBBritish musician (born 1994)
- Napheesa Collierb. 1996USAmerican basketball player (born 1996)
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 43 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 56K | #599 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 54K | #556 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 54K | #604 |
| GD Grenada | Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025 | 2025 | 45 | #178 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 does the name Collier mean, and where does it come from?
- from OE col 'coal'; a maker or seller of charcoal; first attested Ranulf colier a11SO DC (L). Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Collier?
- A machine transcription gives /kɑliɚ/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Collier?
- In the etymology graph, Cou and Kollier are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Collier have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 56 thousand people named Collier, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled collier.
- Where is Collier most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Collier is densest in Grenada — about 1 in 2.5 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Collier?
- In the United States, the national register counted 56,380 people named Collier in 2010, about 1 in 5.9 thousand residents.
- How common is Collier compared with other names?
- In the United States, Collier is the 494th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Collier?
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/collierThe 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, “Collier” — the 494th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.