Painter
surname · Latin script
Meaning: ‘Painter’ (typically in the Middle Ages, a painter of stained glass)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 9 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈpeɪntə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Painter is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Liberia it is the 34th most common surname.
- LRLiberia≈1 in 3.5Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- SGSingapore≈1 in 9.2Kfew records
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 9.3Kfew records
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 402 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 3.5K (inferred from the name graph)
21,969 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Liberia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)‘Painter’ (typically in the Middle Ages, a painter of stained glass).
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 8 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Painter 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 | — | 21,969 | 1 in 15K | 22K | Painter | 402 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈6,000 est. | ≈1 in 12K | 6.2K | Painter | 171 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | Painter | 106 |
| LR Liberia | #34 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 3.5K | — | Painter | 1 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Painter | 119 |
| SG Singapore | #839 | ≈660 est. | ≈1 in 9.2K | — | Painter | 4 |
| NZ New Zealand | #990 | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 9.3K | — | Painter | 55 |
21,969 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)Painter 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 English, from OFr peintour, peintor ‘painter’; first attested Richard the Paintur 1240 FFY
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, mally of stained glass), from ME, OF peinto(u)r, oblique case of peintre (LL pinctor, for class. L pictor, from pingere to paint). Palgrave ‘of the palace’, the result of a cross between palatino and palaciano (respectively from L paldtinus and LL paldtidnus, both derivs. of paldtium; see P.alacio).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, An artist who paints pictures.
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)- William Painterb. 1540GBEnglish author and translator 1540?-1594
- William Hunt Painterb. 1835GBBritish curate, rector, botanist and botanical collector (1835-1910)
- William Painterb. 1838USAmerican inventor (1838–1906)
- Eleanor Painter Strongb. 1891USAmerican opera singer
- Sidney Painterb. 1902USAmerican historian
- Richard Painterb. 1961USAmerican lawyer
- Lance Painterb. 1967USBritish baseball player
- Andrew Painterb. 1975AUAustralian tennis player
- Marcos Painterb. 1986IEIrish footballer
- Owen Painterb. 1997USAmerican actor (born 1997)
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)22 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 9 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 22K | #1,641 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 22K | #1,514 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 21K | #1,690 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 6.2K | #1,281 |
| 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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Painter mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Painter’ (typically in the Middle Ages, a painter of stained glass). Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Painter?
- In English /ˈpeɪntə/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Painter have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 22 thousand people named Painter, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled painter.
- How common is the name Painter?
- In the United States, the national register counted 21,969 people named Painter in 2010, about 1 in 15 thousand residents.
- How common is Painter compared with other names?
- In Liberia, Painter is the 34th most common surname of 10,200 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Painter?
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/painterThe 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, “Painter” — the 34th most common surname in Liberia. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.