Kiernan

Kiernan is the 5,900th most common surname in the United States, shared by 5,630 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 53,100.

By the numbers

People: 5,630
Rank: 5,900th
How common: 1 in 53,100
Per 100,000: 1.9

Where the name comes from

From Irish Tighearnán, from Tighearna (“lord”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 91.8%
Hispanic or Latino 4.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.7%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.0%
Black, not Hispanic 0.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.05%

Notable people called Kiernan

Caitlín R. Kiernan (born 1964)writer
Ben Kiernan (born 1953)Australian-born American historian

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

Surnames like Kiernan

Also a first name

Kiernan has been given to 2,448 American babies as a first name since 1957, peaking in 2008. 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.