Abraham

33,875 people in the United States were counted with the surname Abraham in the 2020 census, making it the 1,011th most common in the country. That is about one person in 8,824.

By the numbers

People: 33,875
Rank: 1,011th
How common: 1 in 8,824
Per 100,000: 11.3

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Middle English Abraham, from Old English Abraham, from Latin Ābrahām, from Ancient Greek Ἀβρᾱᾱ́μ, from Hebrew אַבְרָהָם (“Abraham”). Thomas L. Thompson suggests that the meaning of the name in Genesis was forgotten due to its age and that its original meaning was "Father is exalted." Glossed as אַב (“father of”) + הֲמוֹן (“multitude of”) in Genesis 17:4–5; or from Hebrew אַבְרָם (“Abram”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Abraham described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 39.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 29.9%
Black, not Hispanic 20.2%
Hispanic or Latino 6.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Abraham

F. Murray Abraham (born 1939)American actor
John Abraham (born 1972)Indian film actor, producer and model
Tammy Abraham (born 1997)English association football player
Karl Abraham (1877–1925)German psychoanalyst
Max Abraham (1875–1922)German physicist
Paul Abraham (1892–1960)Jewish-Hungarian composer
David Abraham (born 1986)Argentine professional footballer
Toyin Abraham (born 1980)Nigerian actress

People named Abraham with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Abraham

Also a first name

Abraham has been given to 104,175 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2016. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.