Knight

At the 2020 census, 132,682 Americans bore the surname Knight — 212th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 2,253.

By the numbers

People: 132,682
Rank: 212th
How common: 1 in 2,253
Per 100,000: 44.4

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

From Middle English knyghte, from Old English cniht.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 69.4%
Black, not Hispanic 21.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Knight

Wayne Knight (born 1955)American actor
Shirley Knight (1936–2020)American actress
Sterling Knight (born 1989)American actor, singer, songwriter, director, comedian and musician
Phil Knight (born 1938)American billionaire and co-founder of Nike
T. R. Knight (born 1973)American actor
Gladys Knight (born 1944)American singer
Frank Knight (1885–1972)American economist
Steven Knight (born 1959)British screenwriter and film director

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

Surnames like Knight

Also a first name

Knight has been given to 934 American babies as a first name since 1923, peaking in 2022. 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.