Family name origins & meanings
- English (Sussex) : topographic name for someone who lived by a holt, a small wood, + the suffix -er denoting an inhabitant.
- North German (also Hölter) : habitational name from places called Holter or Hölter.
- Norwegian : habitational name from any of several farmsteads in southeastern Norway, from the indefinite plural of holt ‘holt’, ‘small wood’ (see Holt).