Graham

194,159 people in the United States were counted with the surname Graham in the 2020 census, making it the 123rd most common in the country. That is about one person in 1,539.

By the numbers

People: 194,159
Rank: 123rd
How common: 1 in 1,539
Per 100,000: 65.0

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

The surname derives from Gra(nt)ham, the name of a place in Lincolnshire, from Old English *grand (“gravel”) + hām (“homestead”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 67.2%
Black, not Hispanic 23.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Graham

Billy Graham (1918–2018)American Baptist evangelist
Heather Graham (born 1970)American actress
Lindsey Graham (1955–2026)American politician and attorney
Martha Graham (1894–1991)American dancer and choreographer
Lauren Graham (born 1967)American actress, producer and novelist
Kat Graham (born 1989)American actress and singer
Katharine Graham (1917–2001)American publisher, editor and author
Thomas Graham (1805–1869)British chemist

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

Surnames like Graham

Also a first name

Graham has been given to 61,671 American babies as a first name since 1881, 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.