Ellison

Ellison is the 829th most common surname in the United States, shared by 40,780 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 7,330.

By the numbers

People: 40,780
Rank: 829th
How common: 1 in 7,330
Per 100,000: 13.6

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 63.4%
Black, not Hispanic 27.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Ellison

Larry Ellison (born 1944)American internet entrepreneur and businessman
Ralph Ellison (1914–1994)American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018)American writer
Keith Ellison (born 1963)American politician
Brady Ellison (born 1988)American archer
Megan Ellison (born 1986)American film producer from California
David Ellison (born 1983)American film producer
Pervis Ellison (born 1967)American basketball player

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

Surnames like Ellison

Also a first name

Ellison has been given to 8,658 American babies as a first name since 1881, peaking in 2021. 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.