Helm

At the 2020 census, 15,201 Americans bore the surname Helm — 2,333rd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 19,700.

By the numbers

People: 15,201
Rank: 2,333rd
How common: 1 in 19,700
Per 100,000: 5.1

Where the name comes from

An English topographic surname for someone who lived by or worked at a temporary shelter for animals, from Middle English helm (“a helmet; a protection”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 83.1%
Black, not Hispanic 7.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.0%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Helm

Brigitte Helm (1908–1996)German actress
Levon Helm (1940–2012)American musician
Rüdiger Helm (born 1956)East German canoe racer
Anne Helm (born 1938)American actress and author, born 1938
Mathew Helm (born 1980)Australian diver
John L. Helm (1802–1867)Governor of Kentucky
Zach Helm (born 1975)American film director
Darren Helm (born 1987)Canadian ice hockey player

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

Surnames like Helm

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.