Dow

15,891 people in the United States were counted with the surname Dow in the 2020 census, making it the 2,232nd most common in the country. That is about one person in 18,800.

By the numbers

People: 15,891
Rank: 2,232nd
How common: 1 in 18,800
Per 100,000: 5.3

Where the name comes from

Origin a given name

Variant of Daw from David or daw, and of Duff from Scottish Gaelic.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 78.2%
Black, not Hispanic 10.7%
Hispanic or Latino 4.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Dow

Charles Dow (1851–1902)American journalist
Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922)American painter and photographer
Herbert Henry Dow (1866–1930)Canadian American chemical industrialist
Peggy Dow (born 1928)American actress
Tony Dow (1945–2022)American actor, film director and film producer
Neal S. Dow (1804–1897)American Prohibition advocate and politician

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

Surnames like Dow

Also a first name

Dow has been given to 1,091 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1962. 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.