What is a good translation for the German surname "Buchterkirchen?"?

It's not translateable, because Buchter has no meaning in contemporary german. Maybe it comes from "Bucht" which means bay, so it's a church that is located in a bay. So my only idea is:

Baychurch

sounds stupid, but if you really wanna translate it, it's the only possibility i see:)

Well I went to school with a girl going by the same surname.

I did some research on German sites and there was nothing I found. Only that the name is most common in the German state of Lower-Saxony. (I live in Brandenburg though)

Now.

"Bucht" means "bay".

"Buch" means "book"

"-ter" could be, though it is very speculativ, "der" which is the definite article male or genitive plural of "die", definite article female.

Buchter itself is a word I haven't heard of. It could be very old and have underwent changes in spellings.

So, as for the above you could turn Buchterkirchen as "Buchderkirchen" = Buch der Kirchen. This translates as "book of (the) churches" or "the churches' book".

But I would take that with a huge grain of salt.

Lots of names can't be translated, especially when they're composed of outdated words.

A "Bucht" is a bay or cove, so it could be "church in the cove" or something comparable.

Another possibility is that Buchterkirchen was a town or part of a town that no longer exists. Lots of people used their town of origin as a surname in the past, and German town names changed with the passing of time and transference between territories. The name itself sounds much like other German city names such as: "Mengeringhausen" and "Gelsenkirchen".

A further possibility, although not really feasible, is that "Buchte" was some regional/dialectal variant of the word "Buche" which means "beech" or "beech wood", with an "r" combining the two words into a compound. So, you'd have "beechwood church" Again, this isn't very likely.