Cain

58,521 people in the United States were counted with the surname Cain in the 2020 census, making it the 564th most common in the country. That is about one person in 5,108.

By the numbers

People: 58,521
Rank: 564th
How common: 1 in 5,108
Per 100,000: 19.6

Where the name comes from

From Hebrew קַיִן (“craftsman”), present since Old English.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 74.5%
Black, not Hispanic 16.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Cain

Herman Cain (1945–2020)American businessman
Dean Cain (born 1966)American actor
James M. Cain (1892–1977)American novelist, short story writer, journalist
Susan Cain (born 1968)self-help writer
Tim Cain (born 1965)American video game developer
Carl Cain (1934–2024)American basketball player
Larry Cain (born 1963)Canoe racer
Matt Cain (born 1984)American baseball player

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

Surnames like Cain

Also a first name

Cain has been given to 7,628 American babies as a first name since 1910, peaking in 2014. 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.