Brown
Brown is the 4th most common surname in the United States, shared by 1,386,083 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 216.
By the numbers
- People
- 1,386,083
- Rank
- 4th
- How common
- 1 in 216
- Per 100,000
- 463.7
Where the name comes from
From Middle English Broun, originally a nickname for someone with brown hair or a dark complexion. In the United States, sometimes an anglicization and translation of German Braun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Brown described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Brown
- Gordon Brown (born 1951)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010
- Dan Brown (born 1964)American novelist
- James Brown (1933–2006)American musician
- Millie Bobby Brown (born 2004)British actress
- Chris Brown (born 1989)American singer and rapper
- Robert Brown (1773–1858)British botanist (1773-1858), discoverer of the cell nucleus and of Brownian Motion
- John Brown (1800–1859)American abolitionist
- Herbert C. Brown (1912–2004)American chemist
People named Brown with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Brown
Also a first name
Brown has been given to 1,482 American babies as a first name since 1881, peaking in 1918. 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.