Claus

At the 2020 census, 3,448 Americans bore the surname Claus — 9,102nd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 86,700.

By the numbers

People: 3,448
Rank: 9,102nd
How common: 1 in 86,700
Per 100,000: 1.2

Where the name comes from

Origin Dutch, German, from Ancient Greek

From Dutch and German Claus, a contraction of Nicolaus (“Nicholas”). The spelling Klaus is from more modern and other Germanic languages.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 89.6%
Hispanic or Latino 4.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.2%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.3%
Black, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Claus

Hugo Claus (1929–2008)Belgian author
Karl Ernst Claus (1796–1864)Baltic German scientist
Raphael Claus (born 1979)Brazilian referee
Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Claus (1835–1899)German zoologist, comparative anatomist and university lecturer
Emile Claus (1849–1924)Belgian painter
Hildrun Laufer-Claus (born 1939)East German long jumper

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

Surnames like Claus

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.