The most common surnames
The 2,000 most common names have a full entry; every other name has its census figures. Pick one from the drawer.
- Smith#1 · 2,442,977 people
- Johnson#2 · 1,932,812 people
- Williams#3 · 1,625,252 people
- Brown#4 · 1,437,026 people
- Jones#5 · 1,425,470 people
- Garcia#6 · 1,166,120 people
- Miller#7 · 1,161,437 people
- Davis#8 · 1,116,357 people
- Rodriguez#9 · 1,094,924 people
- Martinez#10 · 1,060,159 people
- Hernandez#11 · 1,043,281 people
- Lopez#12 · 874,523 people
- Gonzalez#13 · 841,025 people
- Wilson#14 · 801,882 people
- Anderson#15 · 784,404 people
- Thomas#16 · 756,142 people
- Taylor#17 · 751,209 people
- Moore#18 · 724,374 people
Browse by letter
Every surname in the census file, grouped by its first letters.
Where names come from
Choose a country on the map to see the surnames linked with it, or choose an origin.
EnglishScottishIrishWelshGermanFrenchSpanishPortugueseItalianScandinavianJewishChineseKoreanVietnamese
Open the mapReal names, real records
Every figure here comes from the 2010 US Census, which counted every surname held by at least 100 people. Before that, family names were written down by hand, one household at a time.
The counts, ranks and population shares on each page are the Census Bureau's. The meanings are summaries of the usual explanations, and they say so when a name has more than one source.
Guides to surname research
How surnames began, why spellings change, and where to look for your own.
- What is a surname?How family names began, the four ways most were formed, and what that means for reading your own.
- The name gameAnglicisation, translation, clerks and choices: the main reasons a family name is not what it was.
- Spellings of surnamesWhy one family appears under several spellings, and how to search for all of them.
- Online search strategiesA practical approach to searching record databases for a name that will not turn up.
- Places and last namesToponymic surnames: what a place name in a family name does and does not tell you.
- German namesSpelling, regions and records for German-American family names.
- Italian namesItalian surname types, regional patterns and where to find records.
- French names in CaliforniaHow French, Spanish and mixed-heritage names shaped the record in California.
- Irish names and placesGaelic prefixes, anglicised spellings and the counties where names cluster.
- Jewish and Eastern European namesHow Jewish family names were adopted, and why records need patience.
- Scottish namesClans, Mac names, Lowland surnames and how to read a Scottish record.
Spellings that drift
Smith, Smyth, Smithe. Enumerators wrote what they heard, so one family can appear under three spellings in three censuses.
Every name page lists similar spellings, so you can search the variants too. Read the guide