James

At the 2020 census, 243,502 Americans bore the surname James — 86th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 1,227.

By the numbers

People: 243,502
Rank: 86th
How common: 1 in 1,227
Per 100,000: 81.5

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

The English New Testament form of Jacob, from Middle English James, from Old French James, from Vulgar Latin Iācōmus, spoken and altered pronunciation of Latin Iācōbus, from Ancient Greek Ἰάκωβος, from Ἰακώβ, from Biblical Hebrew יַעֲקֹב, from the third-person singular masculine imperfective form of the Semitic verb "to heel" (with various meanings), in turn from עָקֵב (“heel of the foot”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 48.4%
Black, not Hispanic 38.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.8%
Hispanic or Latino 4.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 2.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.8%

Notable people called James

William James (1842–1910)American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
LeBron James (born 1984)American basketball player
Henry James (1843–1916)American and British writer
Etta James (1938–2012)American singer
Lily James (born 1989)English actress
Jesse James (1847–1882)American outlaw, confederate guerrilla, and train robber
Reece James (born 1999)English association football player
Kevin James (born 1965)American comedian and actor

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

Surnames like James

Also a first name

James has been given to 5,274,520 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1947. 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.