John
John is the 919th most common surname in the United States, shared by 37,363 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 8,000.
By the numbers
- People
- 37,363
- Rank
- 919th
- How common
- 1 in 8,000
- Per 100,000
- 12.5
Where the name comes from
Origin a patronymic
From Middle English John, Johan, Johannes, from Anglo-Norman Jehan, Johan, and also Old English Iohannes, both from Latin Iōhannēs, variant of Latin Iōannēs, from Koine Greek Ἰωάννης, from Biblical Hebrew יוֹחָנָן, perhaps contracted from a former יְהוֹחָנָן (“God is gracious”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname John described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called John
- Elton John (born 1947)British singer, songwriter and musician
- Scatman John (1942–1999)American musician
- Jill St. John (born 1940)American actress
- Gwen John (1876–1939)Welsh painter
- Dr. John (1941–2019)American singer-songwriter
- Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751)English politician and Viscount
- Stern John (born 1976)Trinidad and Tobago association football player and manager
- Mark St. John (1956–2007)American guitarist
People named John with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like John
Also a first name
John has been given to 5,204,377 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.