Darling

At the 2020 census, 18,195 Americans bore the surname Darling — 1,934th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 16,400.

By the numbers

People: 18,195
Rank: 1,934th
How common: 1 in 16,400
Per 100,000: 6.1

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 84.2%
Black, not Hispanic 7.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.0%
Hispanic or Latino 3.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Darling

Alistair Darling (1953–2023)British Labour Party politician
David Darling (1941–2021)American musician
Gia Darling (born 1977)American pornographic film actress, pornographic film director, and businesswoman
Jane Darling (born 1980)Czech pornographic actress
Chuck Darling (1930–2021)American basketball player
Clifford Darling (1922–2011)Bahamian politician
Jean Darling (1922–2015)American actress
Ralph Darling (1772–1858)British Army general

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

Surnames like Darling

Also a first name

Darling has been given to 1,060 American babies as a first name since 1920, peaking in 2024. 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.