JTW Jr. is correct, a "knife maker" is a someone who makes knives while a "knife manufacturer" is something that mass produces knives.
Bob Loveless is a knife maker. He is someone who crafts unique knives one at a time. We have several knife makers on this forum that craft one knife at a time. They might be "someone" some day too
.
Cold Steel is a knife manufacturer, a company, a thing. It is something that has hundreds or thousands of the same thing manufactured for retail sale. Each one the same and produced with all the mechanical predictability a robotic production line can produce.
Chris Reeves is both a knife maker and the name of his knife manufacturing company. William Henry is the name of the knife manufacturing company that knife maker Matt Conable is partial owner of and the primary designer for.
I've been in the shops of individuals that craft knives one at a time and I've been in the factories of the manufacturers that turn out scores of the exact same knife every day. The work that goes on in each is amazing and marvelous, but in entirely different ways because the knife maker strives to come close to making that one perfect knife while the knife manufacturer strives to perfectly produce the knives that are good enough.
Terms mean certain things and knife makers like our own Valkman, Fuad Acawi, Jim "Black Toe" Adams, Stephen Fowler, TA Davison, etc. are some
ones deserving the respect they are due as fine craftsmen to not be confused with the some
things that are companies that mass produce products sold by the hundreds and thousands. The difference matters because the unique work of those individuals matters.