Foss

12,965 people in the United States were counted with the surname Foss in the 2020 census, making it the 2,712th most common in the country. That is about one person in 23,100.

By the numbers

People: 12,965
Rank: 2,712th
How common: 1 in 23,100
Per 100,000: 4.3

Where the name comes from

Meaning "fox". From Old Saxon fohs, fuhs, from Proto-West Germanic *fuhs, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 91.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.0%
Hispanic or Latino 2.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%
Black, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Foss

Frank Foss (1895–1989)American pole vaulter
Lukas Foss (1922–2009)American composer
Wenche Foss (1917–2011)Norwegian diva, actress, singer, recording artist
Tobias Foss (born 1997)Norwegian cyclist
Per-Kristian Foss (born 1950)Norwegian politician
Joe Foss (1915–2003)United States Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipient

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

Surnames like Foss

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.