Fenton

Fenton is the 2,374th most common surname in the United States, shared by 14,999 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 19,900.

By the numbers

People: 14,999
Rank: 2,374th
How common: 1 in 19,900
Per 100,000: 5.0

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

From Middle English Fenton, from Old English fenn (“fen, marsh”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 84.8%
Black, not Hispanic 6.8%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Fenton

Roger Fenton (1819–1869)British photographer
Lorraine Fenton (born 1973)athletics competitor
George Fenton (born 1949)British film composer
Mildred Adams Fenton (1899–1995)American paleontologist
Reuben Fenton (1819–1885)American politician
Dennis Fenton (1888–1954)sport shooter
Leslie Fenton (1902–1978)actor, film director

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

Surnames like Fenton

Also a first name

Fenton has been given to 2,046 American babies as a first name since 1883, peaking in 1922. 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.