Find out how popular the last name Lyon is in the United States and learn more about the meaning, history, and race and ethnic origin of people in America who are named Lyon.

Lyon, like all of the last names we have data for, is identified by the U.S. Census Bureau as a surname which has more than 100 occurrences in the United States in the Decennial Census survey. The most recent statistics we have for the Lyon surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Lyon in America

Lyon is the 1271st most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Lyon surname appeared 27,690 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 9 people would have the surname Lyon.

We can also compare 2010 data for Lyon to data from the previous census in 2000. The table below contains all of the statistics for both years in a side-by-side comparison.

The history of the last name Lyon

The surname LYON is of Anglo-French origin, deriving from the French city of Lyon, located in east-central France. It is believed to have first emerged as a surname in England during the Norman Conquest of 1066, when many French settlers arrived and adopted the name as a way to identify their place of origin.

One of the earliest recorded instances of the LYON surname can be found in the Domesday Book of 1086, which was a survey of landholdings commissioned by William the Conqueror. The name appears as "de Lyon," indicating that the bearer was from the city of Lyon.

During the Middle Ages, the LYON surname was particularly prevalent in the counties of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, where some of the earliest recorded bearers settled. One notable example is Sir John de Lyon, who was born in 1249 and served as a member of Parliament for Oxfordshire in 1295.

In the 14th century, the surname appeared in various spellings, including Lyons, Lyoun, and Lyone, reflecting the phonetic variations of the time. One prominent individual from this period was Sir John Lyon, a merchant and philanthropist born in 1512, who founded Harrow School in London.

As the LYON surname spread across Britain and into other parts of the world, it became associated with several notable figures throughout history. One such individual was Mary Lyon, born in 1797, who established Mount Holyoke College, one of the first institutions of higher education for women in the United States.

In the 19th century, the LYON surname gained further prominence with individuals like Nathaniel Lyon, a Union Army general during the American Civil War, born in 1818, and Mary Lyon, a women's rights activist born in 1858.

Other notable bearers of the LYON surname include Claude Lyon, a French chemist born in 1677, who made significant contributions to the understanding of acids and bases, and Phyllis Lyon, an American lesbian rights activist born in 1924, who was one of the founders of the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian rights organization in the United States.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Lyon

We also have some data on the ancestry of people with the surname Lyon.

The below race categories are the modified race categories used in the Census Bureau's population estimates program. All people were categorized into six mutually exclusive racial and Hispanic origin groups:

1. White only
2. Black only
3. American Indian and Alaskan Native only
4. Asian and Pacific Islander only
5. Hispanic
6. Two or More Races

For the most recent 2010 census data, the race/ethnic origin breakdown for Lyon was:

Note: Any fields showing (S) means the data was suppressed for privacy so that the data does not in any way identify any specific individuals.

Since we have data from the previous census in 2000, we can also compare the values to see how the popularity of Lyon has changed in the 10 years between the two census surveys.

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 the name Lyon was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

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

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