Boltz
A surname most likely formed as a short, Germanic nickname or pet form, rather than a straightforward occupational name.
The #9,687 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 92,163 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The name is usually treated as German in origin. The 1902 excerpt you provided places it among short forms and diminutives, which suggests it may come from a German nickname base rather than from a full descriptive phrase. In practice, Boltz is often linked to the same family of German forms that produce nicknames from bold or similar short roots, though the exact starting point is not fully certain from the excerpt alone.
History
Boltz appears in German-speaking naming traditions and later turns up in North America through immigration. The spelling is compact and could reflect a regional or dialectal surname form that was stabilized when families entered English-language records. The name is not very common in the United States, but it survives in several related German-American lines.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
In older German surname studies, tiny spelling changes like -tz, -z, and -s often mark dialect and scribal variation rather than a completely different name.
From the historical record
“(Bad + gar); dim. (li), Bachli. BALD, bold ; used frequently as suffix ; dim. (z), Boltz. BAND, war banner; Bender (Band -f hari) ; dim. (z), Bentz. BBR, BERIN, bear, once king of the beasts in the North ; Barnet, Bernhard— gen. , Barnitz (Berin + hard) ; sing. st. ab., Behn,”
— Studies in Pennsylvania German Family Names