Metcalf

At the 2020 census, 23,245 Americans bore the surname Metcalf — 1,499th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 12,900.

By the numbers

People: 23,245
Rank: 1,499th
How common: 1 in 12,900
Per 100,000: 7.8

Where the name comes from

Possibly from Old English *metecealf (“meat calf”), a calf to be fattened up for eating. The use as a surname could have started off as a jocular nickname for an individual thought to be as "fat as a prize-calf"; or else in reference to the occupation involved in fattening up such a calf.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 83.5%
Black, not Hispanic 7.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.0%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Metcalf

Laurie Metcalf (born 1955)American actress
Dorothy M. Metcalf-Lindenburger (born 1975)astronaut
Joel Hastings Metcalf (1866–1925)American astronomer
Willard Metcalf (1858–1925)American artist
Mark Metcalf (born 1946)American actor
Harriet Metcalf (born 1958)American rower
DK Metcalf (born 1997)American football player
Lee Metcalf (1911–1978)American politician

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

Surnames like Metcalf

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.