Thurman
An English surname of uncertain origin, possibly denoting a person from Thurman, Normandy.
Name Census estimates that about 6,296 living Americans carry the first name Thurman. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Thurman today is around 65 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Thurman births was 1920 (361 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Thurman. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • The typical person named Thurman is about 65 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Thurmans were born before 1971.
People living today
6.3K
~ 1 in 54,440 Americans
Peak year
1920
361 babies that year
Average age
65
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,361
Tracked since 1880
Census
Thurman in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 5,344 people with the first name Thurman, which placed it at #3,745 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#3,745
National first-name rank
People counted
5.3K
5,344 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
56.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Thurman
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thurman is White at 56.2%. The next largest groups are Black (36.0%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Thurman described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Thurman at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White56.2% · 3,003
- Black or African American36.0% · 1,925
- Two or more races3.6% · 190
- American Indian and Alaska Native2.6% · 137
- Hispanic or Latino1.3% · 68
- Asian and Pacific Islander0.4% · 21
Gender
Gender distribution for Thurman
Out of the 16,396 babies given the name Thurman since 1880, 100.0% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Thurman as a male name
- Ranked #13,994 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (361 births)
Thurman as a female name
- Ranked #5,361 in 1928
- 5 female births in 1928
- Peak: 1928 (5 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Thurman appears almost entirely male. Of the 5,342 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female.
Popularity
Thurman: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Thurman from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1920s, with 3,209 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1920s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Thurman by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Thurman during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Thurmans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 27 states and territories. North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee recorded the most babies named Thurman, while Iowa, New Jersey, District of Columbia recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 456 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Thurman
The given name Thurman is an English masculine name derived from the Old English surname Thurman, meaning "the man from Thor's village." The name has its origins in the Anglo-Saxon tradition and is associated with the Norse god Thor, the god of thunder and lightning in Germanic mythology.
The earliest recorded use of the name Thurman dates back to the 11th century in England. It was primarily used as a surname during the Middle Ages, but over time, it transitioned into a given name as well. The name gained popularity in the United States during the 19th century, particularly among families of English descent.
One of the earliest recorded individuals with the name Thurman was Thurman ibn Said, an 11th-century Arab traveler and scholar who wrote about his travels through various parts of Europe and the Middle East. Another notable figure was Thurman Munson, an American professional baseball player who played for the New York Yankees from 1969 to 1979 and was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1979 at the age of 32.
In literature, the name Thurman appears in Herman Melville's famous novel "Moby Dick," where it is the name of one of the crew members aboard the whaling ship Pequod. The character Thurman is described as a dedicated and skilled sailor.
Other notable individuals with the name Thurman include Thurman Thomas, a former American football running back who played for the Buffalo Bills from 1988 to 2000 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007. Thurman Munson, an American diplomat and author, served as the United States Ambassador to Bahrain from 1959 to 1961.
The name Thurman has also been associated with several notable figures in the entertainment industry, such as Thurman Berton, an American actor who appeared in numerous films and television shows during the 1950s and 1960s, and Thurman Arnold, an American lawyer, author, and political philosopher who served as the head of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1938 to 1943.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Thurman
People
Thurman + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Thurman as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with T
Other first names starting with T with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Thurman: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Thurman?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6,296 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Thurman going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 54,440 US residents.
Is Thurman a common name?
We classify Thurman as "Rare". It ranks above 97% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 16,396 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Thurman most popular?
The single biggest year for Thurman was 1920, when 361 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Thurman is about 65 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Thurman in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 5,344 people with the name Thurman, or 1.77 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,745 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Thurman in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Thurman?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Thurman appears almost entirely male. Of the 5,342 people counted with this name, 99.6% were male and only a very small share were female. The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Thurman?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Thurman is White at 56.2%. The next largest groups are Black (36.0%) and Two or More Races (3.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Thurman most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Thurman in the 2020 Census, accounting for 56.2% (3,003 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Thurman in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Thurman a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Thurman in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Thurman still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Thurman in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Thurman can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Thurman?
Find out how many people share the name Thurman on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — a quick modern estimate with the living-bearer count front and centre.