Pitcher
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) person with the job of caulking a ship’s seams with pitch; (ii) a different form of Pickard
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 10 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈpɪtʃ.ə/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Pitcher is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 18K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 24K
- CACanada≈1 in 30K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 344 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 18K (inferred from the name graph)
6,272 people, 2010
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)(i) person with the job of caulking a ship’s seams with pitch; (ii) a different form of Pickard
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Pitcher 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 | 6,272 | 1 in 53K | 6.3K | Pitcher | 344 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 24K | 4K | Pitcher | 163 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | Pitcher | 114 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 30K | — | Pitcher | 117 |
| ZA South Africa | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 125K | — | Pitcher | 32 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 31K | — | Pitcher | 37 |
| IE Ireland | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 48K | — | Pitcher | 21 |
6,272 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)Pitcher 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, from OE pīcian ‘to pitch’, one who covers or caulks with pitch; first attested William le Picher 1243 AssSo
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, for a caulker, one who sealed the seams of a ship with pitch, from an agent deriv. of ME pick (OE pic; cf. Pecker i and Pegue). 2. var. of Pickard 2. Vars.: Eng.: Plaice. (Of i only): Fr.: Plasse, Laplace, Delaplace. (Of 3 only): Eng.: Pl(e)ass, Pleace, Pleece. Patr.: Pitchers. Dims, (of i): It.: Piazzini. Piazzol(l)a, Piazzoli.
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, One who pitches (in any sense) anything
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Molly, sobriquet of Mary McCauley
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In Spanish, alternative spelling of pícher
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)- Nathaniel Pitcherb. 1777USAmerican lawyer, politician, and diplomat (1777-1836)
- Fred B. Pitcherb. 1867USAmerican lawyer and politician (1867-1924)
- Frank Pitcherb. 1879AUAustralian cricketer (1879-1921)
- Frederick Pitcherb. 1967NRPresident of Nauru
- Darren Pitcherb. 1969GBEnglish footballer (1969-2018)
- Geoff Pitcherb. 1975GBFootballer (born 1975)
- Annabel Pitcherb. 1982GBBritish children's writer
- Oliver Pitcherb. 1983BMBermudian cricketer
- Tony J. Pitcherb. 2000CACanadian biologist
- Kathy PitcherUSAmerican para-alpine skier
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)19 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 10 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 6.3K | #5,539 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.1K | #5,529 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6K | #5,306 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 4K | #1,979 |
| 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 4
- 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)
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 Pitcher mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) person with the job of caulking a ship’s seams with pitch; (ii) a different form of Pickard Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Pitcher?
- In the etymology graph, Pichel is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Pitcher?
- In English /ˈpɪtʃ.ə/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Pitcher have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 6.3 thousand people named Pitcher, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled pitcher.
- How common is the name Pitcher?
- In the United States, the national register counted 6,272 people named Pitcher in 2010, about 1 in 53 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Pitcher?
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/pitcherThe 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, “Pitcher”. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.