Elder

Elder is the 1,201st most common surname in the United States, shared by 28,711 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 10,400.

By the numbers

People: 28,711
Rank: 1,201st
How common: 1 in 10,400
Per 100,000: 9.6

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 76.2%
Black, not Hispanic 15.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.4%

Notable people called Elder

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525–1569)Flemish painter
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891)German Field Marshal
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)German painter and printmaker
Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625)Flemish painter
Hans Holbein the Elder (1465–1524)German painter (c. 1465–1524)
Louis de Geer the Elder (1818–1896)Swedish 19th century prime minister
Sten Sture the Elder (1440–1503)Swedish statesman and military figure
Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473–1531)German painter

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

Surnames like Elder

Also a first name

Elder has been given to 2,320 American babies as a first name since 1880, 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.