Lyon

26,997 people in the United States were counted with the surname Lyon in the 2020 census, making it the 1,275th most common in the country. That is about one person in 11,100.

By the numbers

People: 26,997
Rank: 1,275th
How common: 1 in 11,100
Per 100,000: 9.0

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

From Middle English lyon (“lion”), as a nickname, or from a sign often used outside of roadside inns and adopted as a family name by those who lived there (compare Bush).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 88.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
Black, not Hispanic 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Lyon

Sue Lyon (1946–2019)American actress
Mary F. Lyon (1925–2014)English geneticist
Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1861)first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War
Ben Lyon (1901–1979)American actor
Mary Lyon (1797–1849)American educator
George Lyon (1858–1938)Amateur golfer
Nathan Lyon (born 1987)Australian cricketer
Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. (1875–1942)U.S. mammalogist, bacteriologist, and pathologist

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

Surnames like Lyon

Lyons

Also a first name

Lyon has been given to 962 American babies as a first name since 1947, peaking in 2024. 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.