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

Watson, 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 Watson surname is from the 2010 census data.

Popularity of Watson in America

Watson is the 81st most popular name in America based on the data we have collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Watson surname appeared 252,579 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 86 people would have the surname Watson.

We can also compare 2010 data for Watson 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 Watson

The surname Watson is of English origin and dates back to the medieval period. It is a locational surname derived from various places in England called 'Watsun', meaning 'son of Wat'. Wat was a diminutive form of the Old English personal name 'Walter', which means 'ruler of the army'.

The earliest recorded reference to the name Watson can be found in the Pipe Rolls of Yorkshire in 1176, where it appears as 'Watsun'. Another early record is in the Hundred Rolls of Huntingdonshire in 1273, where it is listed as 'Watessone'.

The Watson surname is believed to have originated in the counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Northumberland, where place names like Watson's Town and Watson Fell existed. Some of the earliest bearers of the name were likely tenants or landowners from these locations.

One of the earliest recorded individuals with the surname Watson was John Watson, a Scottish writer and philosopher who lived from around 1520 to 1584. He is known for his work 'The Reasonyng betuix Adame and Eue', published in 1572.

Another notable bearer of the name was Thomas Watson, an English Puritan minister and author who lived from 1555 to 1592. His works include 'The Doctrine of Repentance' and 'A Body of Practical Divinity'.

In the 17th century, Sir Lewis Watson was a prominent English mathematician and inventor who lived from 1584 to 1653. He is credited with developing one of the earliest calculating machines.

The Watson surname also has connections to the literary world, with John Watson, better known as Dr. Watson, being the fictional companion of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).

One of the most famous bearers of the Watson surname in modern times was James D. Watson, the American molecular biologist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. He was born in 1928 and received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962.

Race and ethnic origin of people with the last name Watson

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

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 Watson 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 Watson 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 Watson was researched and written by our team of onomatology and genealogy experts.

If you have a correction or suggestion to improve the history of Watson, 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.

If you found the data or information on this page useful in your research, please use the tool below to properly cite or reference Name Census as the source. We appreciate your support!