Dennis

74,379 people in the United States were counted with the surname Dennis in the 2020 census, making it the 438th most common in the country. That is about one person in 4,019.

By the numbers

People: 74,379
Rank: 438th
How common: 1 in 4,019
Per 100,000: 24.9

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Middle English Denis, from Old French saint's name Denis, brought to England by Normans; from Latin Dionysius, a masculine name literally meaning “follower of (the wine god) Dionysus”.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 62.3%
Black, not Hispanic 27.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Hispanic or Latino 3.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Dennis

Sandy Dennis (1937–1992)American actress
Ron Dennis (born 1947)British businessman
Rohan Dennis (born 1990)Australian racing cyclist
Emmanuel Dennis (born 1997)Nigerian association football player
Clare Dennis (1916–1971)Australian swimmer, Olympic gold medallist
Cathy Dennis (born 1969)British singer
Jake Dennis (born 1995)British racing driver
Simon Dennis (born 1976)British rower

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

Surnames like Dennis

Also a first name

Dennis has been given to 623,692 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1952. 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.