Elias

At the 2020 census, 25,310 Americans bore the surname Elias — 1,370th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 11,800.

By the numbers

People: 25,310
Rank: 1,370th
How common: 1 in 11,800
Per 100,000: 8.5

Where the name comes from

The New Testament form of Elijah, a Hebrew prophet.

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

Who bears the name

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

Hispanic or Latino 48.4%
White, not Hispanic 40.8%
Black, not Hispanic 6.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 2.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 1.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.3%

Notable people called Elias

Norbert Elias (1897–1990)German sociologist
Jorge Serrano Elías (born 1945)President of Guatemala
Prince Elias, Hereditary Duke of Parma (1880–1959)Pretender to the throne of Parma
Elias (born 1985)Brazilian association football player
Eliane Elias (born 1960)Brazilian jazz pianist, singer, arranger and songwriter
Zé Elias (born 1976)Brazilian footballer
Jean Elias (born 1969)Brazilian association football player
Ricardo Leoncio Elías Arias (1874–1951)President of Peru

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

Surnames like Elias

Also a first name

Elias has been given to 129,502 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2025. 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.