Carter

At the 2020 census, 364,355 Americans bore the surname Carter — 50th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 820.

By the numbers

People: 364,355
Rank: 50th
How common: 1 in 820
Per 100,000: 121.9

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

As an English name, from the occupation carter. As an Irish name, from Irish Mac Artúir.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 55.7%
Black, not Hispanic 34.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Carter

Jimmy Carter (1924–2024)president of the United States from 1977 to 1981
Howard Carter (1874–1939)British egyptologist
Helena Bonham Carter (born 1966)British actress
Rosalynn Carter (1927–2023)First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981
Dixie Carter (1939–2010)American actress
Kevin Carter (1960–1994)South African photojournalist
Angela Carter (1940–1992)English novelist
Nick Carter (born 1980)American singer

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

Surnames like Carter

Also a first name

Carter has been given to 216,871 American babies as a first name since 1881, peaking in 2015. 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.