How Common Is My Last Name?

Look up a U.S. surname in the 2020 Census published name table. See its disclosure-adjusted count, rank, and source limits without guessing ancestry.

01 · Choose your filters

Set your course.

Search all 156,621 published surnames in the 2020 Census table by spelling. A published, disclosure-adjusted count describes a population aggregate in that source year; it says nothing about an individual person.

Inputs are processed by our generation service. They are not added to a public name bank.

02 · Explore

Your results

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Practical guide

Make this tool useful.

Read the year and coverage

The result identifies the 2020 Census and reports only published name, count, and rank fields. Publication required the surname to meet the source threshold in both 2010 and 2020; an absent name can still occur in 2020.

Separate frequency from origin

A count or rank cannot tell you where your family came from or what a name means. Spelling variants and source processing rules also affect lookup results.

Compare with care

The 2020 count includes Census disclosure protection noise, and published ranks can tie. The generator’s optional 2010 surnames belong to a different source year; this lookup does not invent a 2020 rank for them.

Questions about this tool

Is this the number of people with my exact name today?

No. It is a disclosure-adjusted published 2020 Census aggregate for a surname spelling, not a live count.

Why is a known surname missing?

The source includes only names meeting its publication rule in both 2010 and 2020, and standardizes spellings. Absence does not prove zero occurrences or fewer than 100 in 2020.

Read our data sources and selection rules before using a result as evidence of popularity.