WalD
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: dweller in the forest or by the woodland; first attested William de Welde 1121–18 Bury (Sf) (A Dictionary of English Surnames)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 17 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/wɔːld/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
WalD is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Germany than in any other country.
- AGAntigua & Barbuda≈1 in 8.2Kfew records(inferred from the name graph)
- DEGermany≈1 in 17K
- ATAustria≈1 in 26Kfew 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.
- Germany (inferred from the name graph)
- Record sources
- 335 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 8.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,000 people, est.
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Antigua & Barbuda, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
How to pronounce WalD
- English:/wɔːld/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
- German:/valt/(recorded in a dictionary) from Wiktionary
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from Germanic *wald- 'rule, power' or the related name stem WALTEN
Cited for this meaning 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How WalD is read
(measured from records)WalD is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English72%
dweller in the forest or by the woodland; first attested William de Welde 1121–18 Bury (Sf)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
To govern; inherit.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- German14%
from Germanic *wald- 'rule, power' or the related name stem WALTEN
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Toponymic surname from a place/dwelling name.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 4: Familiennamen nach Herkunft und Wohnstätte
forest, woods
as a wordA Frequency Dictionary of German
forest; woods; woodland
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where the surname WalD is found
(measured from records)WalD 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE Germany | — | ≈5,000 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | WalD | 131 |
| US United States | — | 4,057 | 1 in 82K | 4.9K | WalD | 335 |
| MA Morocco | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 35K | — | WalD | 12 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈720 est. | ≈1 in 58K | — | WalD | 98 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 116K | 123 | WalD | 72 |
| LA Laos | — | ≈420 est. | ≈1 in 18K | — | WalD | 2 |
| AT Austria | — | ≈350 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | WalD | 40 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | #182 | ≈11 est. | ≈1 in 8.2K | — | WalD | 1 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; 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).
Notable people with this name
(measured from records)- Wald Ábrahámb. 1902USAmerican mathematician, statistician, and scientist (1902–1950)
- George Waldb. 1906USAmerican biologist, biochemist, physiologist and Nobel laureate (1906–1997)
- Helen Reddyb. 1941AUnot in their usual nameAustralian and American singer and actress (1941–2020)
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)32 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 17 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name WalD come from?
- from Germanic *wald- 'rule, power' or the related name stem WALTEN Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- What are other forms of the name WalD?
- In the etymology graph, Gewalt and Wield are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce WalD?
- It depends on the language: in English /wɔːld/ (Wiktionary); in German /valt/ (Wiktionary).
- What does the name WalD mean?
- In English, dweller in the forest or by the woodland; first attested William de Welde 1121–18 Bury (Sf)
- Which countries have the most people with the surname WalD?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.0 thousand people named WalD in Germany, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled WalD. After it come United States, Morocco, Canada and United Kingdom; the country table on this page ranks them.
- How common is the name WalD?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,057 people named WalD in 2010, about 1 in 82 thousand residents.
- How common is WalD compared with other names?
- In Antigua & Barbuda, WalD is the 182nd most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about WalD?
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/waldThe 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, “WalD” — the 182nd most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.