Godfrey

Godfrey is the 1,237th most common surname in the United States, shared by 27,953 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 10,700.

By the numbers

People: 27,953
Rank: 1,237th
How common: 1 in 10,700
Per 100,000: 9.4

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Old French Godefrei, from Old High German Godafrid (“peace of God”), from Proto-Germanic *Gudafriþuz. Equivalent.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 75.2%
Black, not Hispanic 16.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.0%
Hispanic or Latino 3.2%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%

Notable people called Godfrey

Ben Godfrey (born 1998)English association football player
Arthur Godfrey (1903–1983)American radio personality and television actor
William Godfrey (1889–1963)Catholic cardinal
Linsey Godfrey (born 1988)American actress
Larry Godfrey (born 1976)British archer
Patrick Godfrey (1933–2026)British actor
Renee Godfrey (1919–1964)American actress and singer
Peter Godfrey-Smith (born 1965)Australian philosopher

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

Surnames like Godfrey

Also a first name

Godfrey has been given to 3,245 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1918. 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.