Dear

Dear is the 9,045th most common surname in the United States, shared by 3,467 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 86,200.

By the numbers

People: 3,467
Rank: 9,045th
How common: 1 in 86,200
Per 100,000: 1.2

Where the name comes from

English surname, related to the adjective dear and noun deer (from Old English deor (“wild animal”), used in many senses).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 64.0%
Black, not Hispanic 24.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.8%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 3.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Surnames like Dear

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.