Nathan

7,874 people in the United States were counted with the surname Nathan in the 2020 census, making it the 4,353rd most common in the country. That is about one person in 38,000.

By the numbers

People: 7,874
Rank: 4,353rd
How common: 1 in 38,000
Per 100,000: 2.6

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Hebrew נָתָן (“gave”). Also short for Jonathan.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 51.2%
Black, not Hispanic 28.2%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 12.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Nathan

Nathan (born 1996)Brazilian association football player
George Jean Nathan (1882–1958)American drama critic and magazine editor
Ernesto Nathan (1845–1921)Mayor of Rome
Matthew Nathan (1862–1939)British colonial administrator
Abie Nathan (1927–2008)Israeli peace activist, humanist, pilot
DeDee Nathan (born 1968)American heptathlete

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

Surnames like Nathan

Also a first name

Nathan has been given to 589,271 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2004. 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.