Ellis
At the 2020 census, 182,308 Americans bore the surname Ellis — 137th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 1,640.
By the numbers
- People
- 182,308
- Rank
- 137th
- How common
- 1 in 1,640
- Per 100,000
- 61.0
Where the name comes from
Origin a patronymic
As an English surname, from the Middle English personal name Elis, an Old French form of Elias. Compare Elijah, Lias, Ely. Also sometimes from the Elice, a pet form of Elizabeth.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Ellis described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Ellis
- Albert Ellis (1913–2007)American psychologist
- Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)British physician, writer, and social reformer
- Bret Easton Ellis (born 1964)American novelist, screenwriter
- Tom Ellis (born 1978)Welsh actor
- Nelsan Ellis (1977–2017)American actor
- Monta Ellis (born 1985)American basketball player
- David R. Ellis (1952–2013)American film director and actor
- Warren Ellis (born 1968)English comics and fiction writer
People named Ellis with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Ellis
Also a first name
Ellis has been given to 57,731 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.