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COLTER Family History

This interesting and unusual medieval English name is a dialectal variant of a metonymic occupational name, Colt, given to someone who looked after asses or horses. The derivation is from the Old English pre 7th Century "Colt", meaning a young ass, later also a young horse. In Northern England "Colt" was the generic word for working horses or asses. However it is also possible that this could be a nickname surname for a lively, frisky, person. In the modern idiom, the spelling variants include Colter, Coltman, and the later Coldman, a late southern dialectal spelling.