Holly

Holly is the 4,119th most common surname in the United States, shared by 8,365 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 35,700.

By the numbers

People: 8,365
Rank: 4,119th
How common: 1 in 35,700
Per 100,000: 2.8

Where the name comes from

Origin Middle English

As an Irish surname, calque of mac cuilinn (“holly”) (see McCullen) and sometimes McQuillan.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 62.8%
Black, not Hispanic 27.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%

Notable people called Holly

Lauren Holly (born 1963)American actress
Bob Holly (born 1963)American professional wrestler and actor
Ján Hollý (1785–1849)Slovak Catholic priest, writer, poet and translator
Molly Holly (born 1977)American professional wrestler
Crash Holly (1971–2003)American professional wrestler

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

Surnames like Holly

Also a first name

Holly has been given to 206,845 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1983. 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.