Mao

At the 2020 census, 7,493 Americans bore the surname Mao — 4,588th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 39,900.

By the numbers

People: 7,493
Rank: 4,588th
How common: 1 in 39,900
Per 100,000: 2.5

Where the name comes from

Origin Chinese

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 93.1%
White, not Hispanic 2.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 2.4%
Black, not Hispanic 0.9%
Hispanic or Latino 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.03%

Notable people called Mao

Mao Zedong (1893–1976)1st chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and founder of the People's Republic of China
Mao Anying (1922–1950)Chinese soldier, son of Chairman Mao Zedong of China
Cao Mao (241–260)Cao Wei emperor from 254 to 260
Mao Ning (born 1972)Chinese politician and diplomat
Mao Zemin (1896–1943)Mao Zedong's brother
Mao Chi-kuo (born 1948)Taiwanese politician
Mao Zetan (1905–1935)Mao Zedong's brother
Cai Mao (died 208)Late 2nd/early 3rd century Han dynasty general

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

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.