Ness

Ness is the 3,424th most common surname in the United States, shared by 10,195 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 29,300.

By the numbers

People: 10,195
Rank: 3,424th
How common: 1 in 29,300
Per 100,000: 3.4

Where the name comes from

Named after the River Ness, of cel-bry-pro/xpi origin, from a Proto-Celtic word *Nesta describing great currents, according to MacBain, from the same Proto-Indo-European root that gave the river Νέστος, possibly *ned- (“water”) (cf. German nass).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 91.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.0%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.0%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Black, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Ness

Eliot Ness (1903–1957)American Prohibition agent
Mike Ness (born 1962)American musician
Patrick Ness (born 1971)American-British novelist and children's writer
Jonathan Van Ness (born 1987)American hairstylist and TV personality
Aaron Ness (born 1990)American ice hockey player
Jamie Ness (born 1991)Scottish association football player

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

Surnames like Ness

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.