Major

20,326 people in the United States were counted with the surname Major in the 2020 census, making it the 1,725th most common in the country. That is about one person in 14,700.

By the numbers

People: 20,326
Rank: 1,725th
How common: 1 in 14,700
Per 100,000: 6.8

Where the name comes from

As an English surname of Norman origin, from the personal name Malgier, via Old French from the Germanic name *Madalgari. See Mauger.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 59.0%
Black, not Hispanic 31.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Major

John Major (born 1943)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997
John Major (1469–1550)Scottish philosopher
István Major (1949–2014)Hungarian high jumper
Leo Major (1921–2008)Canadian World War II and Korean war soldier
Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major (1843–1923)zoologist
Veronika Major (born 1997)Hungarian sport shooter
Tamás Major (1910–1986)Hungarian actor and theatre manager

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

Surnames like Major

Also a first name

Major has been given to 21,749 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2017. 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.