Earl

At the 2020 census, 15,377 Americans bore the surname Earl — 2,312th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 19,400.

By the numbers

People: 15,377
Rank: 2,312th
How common: 1 in 19,400
Per 100,000: 5.1

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

From earl (“nobleman”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 70.6%
Black, not Hispanic 20.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Earl

Athol Earl (born 1952)New Zealand rower
Harley Earl (1893–1969)American designer
Ulf the Earl (900–1026)Danish nobleman
Holly Earl (born 1992)British actress
Tony Earl (1936–2023)American politician
Ralph Earl (1751–1801)American painter

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

Surnames like Earl

Also a first name

Earl has been given to 291,421 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1921. 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.