Napoleon

At the 2020 census, 2,640 Americans bore the surname Napoleon — 11,409th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 113,000.

By the numbers

People: 2,640
Rank: 11,409th
How common: 1 in 113,000
Per 100,000: 0.88

Where the name comes from

From French Napoléon, from Italian Napoleone, name of an early saint, of uncertain origin; possibly from the Germanic clan name Nibelung. By folk etymology explained as Napoli (“Naples”) + leone (“lion”).

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

Who bears the name

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

Black, not Hispanic 43.6%
White, not Hispanic 29.4%
Hispanic or Latino 10.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 7.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 7.1%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 2.7%

Notable people called Napoleon

Napoleon (1769–1821)French military leader, French Emperor 1804–1814 and again in 1815
Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856–1879)French prince
Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon (born 1986)Head of the House of Bonaparte

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

Surnames like Napoleon

Also a first name

Napoleon has been given to 7,810 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1926. 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.