In this section of the site we have data on the most common last names in the United States. These names are taken directly from the most recent census data.

The table below shows the most common last names with statistics on the heritage and ancestry of those with the surname.

You can use the links below to view more common surnames. This page is currently showing names ranked from 3001 to 4000.

Most common last names: 1-1000 | 1001-2000 | 2001-3000 | 3001-4000 | 4001-5000

You can also click any of the names in the table below to find out more about the origin, meaning, and ancestry of each last name.

Table key

To help you understand the above table, below is a description of each column and what it represents.

• Count. Number of occurrences: Estimate of the number of people with the surname in the United States. (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy.
• White. Non-Hispanic White Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic white" (race)
• Black. Non-Hispanic Black Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic black" (race)
• API. Non-Hispanic Asian & Pacific Islander Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic Asian & Pacific Islander" (race)
• AIAN. Non-Hispanic American Indian & Alaskan Native Only: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic American Indian & Alaskan Native" (race)
• 2 or More Races. Non-Hispanic of 2 or More Races: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "non-hispanic two or more races" (race)
• Hispanic. Hispanic Origin: Percentage of people with a given surname who classified themselves as "Hispanic origin" (race)

The history of surnames

Did you find your name on the list? If not, do you wonder why? Much of this has to do with where surnames came from and their meanings.

Believe it or not, surnames are a newer technology. Before 3,000 years ago, no one even used surnames, rather, everyone just went by their first name. But as the population grew, and people traveled to far-off lands, it become apparent that humanity needed another way to distinguish people from one another.

This change of adopting a surname first happened in China, which makes sense, considering they've been the country with the largest population for thousands of years. The government asked all citizens to take their father's first name in order to track who was paying taxes.

This continued for generations and is still in practice today. This is why many Chinese people have a first name and a surname that are both first names.

Europeans didn't hop on the last name boat until the Middle Ages when technology and medicine began to advance to the point where they needed last names to keep track of all the people who were suddenly living so much longer. Then, as the Europeans began to colonize the globe, the practice spread, until today, where almost everyone on earth has a last name.

Where do surnames come from?

Because surnames were developed by several different cultures concurrently, there is no one answer to this question. Rather, where your surname came from generally depends on the country your ancestry is from.

There are four different evolutions of surnames, patronymic, locative, occupational, and nicknames, but note that last names have become increasingly more complicated over time, something which can make it difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of your surname.

Patronymic surnames

These are typically the easiest surnames to decrypt. They typically end in either 'son' or 'dottir.' Son, as in Johnson, indicates that the individual originally given the last name was 'the son of John.' of

This type of surnaming was very common in England (which is what led to them being so common in America), as well as the Nordic countries. But the Norse communities, besides just using son, used the suffix 'dottir' to specify that someone was the daughter of someone. This is where names like Jansdottir came from (Jan's daughter).

These last names are less common in the US, but can still be found in communities that can trace their ancestry to the Nordic Countries.

Locative last names

Besides just naming people after their parents, back in the Middle Ages, many people were given names of places. Look at it this way, there were a bunch of Johns in those days, and not every child of John could be Johnson. Instead, people used locations to specify the person.

This led to last names like Lake, York, and Marsh. Someone who might have been named David would be "David of the Lake" or "David of the Marsh" when he was first given the name. But over time, humans have developed shortcuts in language which shortened these names to just "David Lake" or "David Marsh."

Some people took this a step further, and members of the noble classes would name themselves after the area they ruled over. This is where the last name Hastings came from.

Occupational last names

While locative and patronymic last names worked for smaller communities and members of the nobility, it was difficult to give surnames to people in places like London which already had about 200,000 people by the year 1600. Therefore many people took to adopting the surname of their profession.

This made more sense back in the day because back then you were almost guaranteed to take over the family business when your parents died. So if your dad was named John Tailor, and was a clothing tailor, it made sense for his son to be Jonathon Tailor.

Occupational last names make up some of the most common surnames found in the United States today, most notably Smith, which has been the most common last name in the USA for decades. Other names like Knight, Prince, Baker, Farmer, and Tanner all came about due to this naming tactic.

This naming tactic also created a patronymic tactic of its own, as some people took the suffix of son and added it to their occupation. Hence names such as Bakerson and Smithson.

Nickname last names

The last category surnames are put into is the nickname category. During the Middle Ages, if they couldn't find a locative or occupational last name for you, you were given a nickname.

For example, say a small town already had a John Smith, but your name was also John and you were a blacksmith. The town also already had a John Lake (because this town is located by a lake) and a John Berkeley, which is the name of the town. So what were you to do? Well, at this point you would become to be known as a nickname.

Common nicknames of the time would be Jolly John or Little John. Although the nickname back then may have preceded the name, they eventually came to follow the first name. This led to the last names Little and Jolly to name a couple.

How American surnames are different

Did you read the above information and still can't seem to trace your surname? Well, tracing a surname in America is different than tracing it in Europe. While European surnames tend to follow the above rules (even if they are in different languages) Americans run into a few problems when it comes to finding the origin of their surname.

One of these reasons is because of the slave trade to the continent. During this process, the slaves had their names taken from them and were given new last names. These slaves were frequently named after their owners or the physical characteristics they exhibited. This is where the last names 'White' and 'Black' come from as well as the last names of ownership like 'Jacobs.'

Additionally, the Native Americans, who lived in the US long before the Americans, never had surnames. Instead, they had multi-part first names. Sometimes, Americans would take part of this first name and make it a last name. For example, a translation of a Native American name could mean "Makes a song like a bird" in English, and the Americans would say the last name of that man was Birdsong.

It, unfortunately, gets even more sinister than that, as there was a period of time when Americans stole children from Native American tribes and forced them to go through Catholic school. At which time, they were given catholic names and prohibited from saying their name given by their parents. Thus, if you are Native American, you may have the last name Smith, even if no one in your family was ever a blacksmith.

How have American surnames changed over time?

There's a chance your surname still hasn't popped up even with all this information. And this leads to the final problem of tracing a last name in the US, and this is that the surnames have often changed from their original European version.

This first happened during the mass immigration to the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. If your family immigrated to the US through either Angel Island or Ellis Island, they were required to report their name for the ship manifest. If they could not read or write, they had to say it to someone—who would write it down for them.

Therefore a last name could be missing a letter or two, or have an additional letter. It's possible a name like 'Cooke' could be changed to 'Cook' which although they sound the same, could make tracing the genealogy of your surname very difficult.

Mass immigration also brought many non-English last names to America. Over the generations, intermarriage and assimilation have brought these foreign-sounding names to be common in society. For example, Moretti, a traditional Italian name is now common in the US and is not tied to any race.

America has always been the land of the free, and even back then, Ellis Island allowed immigrants to change their last names voluntarily. Many did this to fit in with society. If they did it here, it's on record. But if they decided to change their name later, due to difficulty finding a job, this would not be recorded and no one would know the difference because they were new to the country.

So one of your ancestors could have simply decided to stop going by the surname Moretti in 1910 and change to be Smith and you would have no idea.

Besides just immigration through both of the coasts, there have been many changes made to the borders of the USA over the years. After one of these border changes, many inhabitants of New Mexico, Arizona, and even Southern Colorado who were once part of Mexico found themselves to be American citizens.

Thus this led to the rise of popular Spanish-sounding surnames like Rodriquez and Garcia in the US.

Can you guess race based on surname?

Because these border changes and immigrations happened decades and centuries ago, surnames in the United States are no longer limited to just one race. Therefore you cannot guess someone's race based on their surname.

For example, the name Smith, is the most popular surname in the US, and 70% of the people who have it are white, 23% are black, and the remaining 7% is made up of a variety of different races such as Asian, Pacific Islander, and Hispanic.

The point is, surnames, while coming from many different origins, no longer have anything to do with race.

Last names by ancestry

You can use the links below to find the most common and popular last names by ancestry.

• White last names
• Black last names
• Hispanic last names
• Asian & Pacific Islander last names
• American Indian & Alaskan Native last names
• Two or more race last names

Last names by length

Our database contains names ranging in length from 2 to 15 letters. To find out more information about last names of different lengths you can use the following links:

• 2 letter last names
• 3 letter last names
• 4 letter last names
• 5 letter last names
• 6 letter last names
• 7 letter last names
• 8 letter last names
• 9 letter last names
• 10 letter last names
• 11 letter last names
• 12 letter last names
• 13 letter last names
• 14 letter last names
• 15 letter last names

Last names by letter

To find all of the most popular last names by starting letter, you can choose a letter from the following list:

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

Last names by ancestry and letter

If you want to get even more specific, we also have pages that will let you find last names beginning with A (or any other letter) based on a specific ancestry.

(You must really be into last names to get this far down the page!)

Data source

The last name data and ethnic breakdown of last names is sourced directly from the Decennial Census survey, conducted every 10 years by the United States Census Bureau.

The history and meaning of all last names were researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of a surname, please contact us.

Reference this page

We spend a lot of resources downloading, cleaning, merging, and formatting the data that is shown on the site.

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