McElwain

McElwain is the 10,391st most common surname in the United States, shared by 2,949 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 101,000.

By the numbers

People: 2,949
Rank: 10,391st
How common: 1 in 101,000
Per 100,000: 0.99

Where the name comes from

Anglicized form of Scottish Gaelic Mac Gille Bheathain (“son of the servant of (Saint) Beathan”), a personal name representing a diminutive of beatha (“life”). Anglicized form of Irish Mac Giolla Bháin (“son of the white-haired lad”), for which compare Kilbane.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 88.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.7%
Black, not Hispanic 3.4%
Hispanic or Latino 2.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Surnames like McElwain

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.