Patterson

Patterson is the 121st most common surname in the United States, shared by 197,137 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 1,516.

By the numbers

People: 197,137
Rank: 121st
How common: 1 in 1,516
Per 100,000: 66.0

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Middle English Pate, short form of Patrick, +.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 64.6%
Black, not Hispanic 26.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Patterson

James Patterson (born 1947)American author
Clair Cameron Patterson (1922–1995)American chemist and geochemist
Floyd Patterson (1935–2006)American heavyweight boxer
Eleanor Patterson (born 1996)Australian athletics competitor
Nathan Patterson (born 2001)Scottish association football player
Carly Patterson (born 1988)American artistic gymnast and rock singer
Scott Patterson (born 1958)American actor
P. J. Patterson (born 1935)former prime minister of Jamaica, Jamaican politician

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

Surnames like Patterson

Also a first name

Patterson has been given to 560 American babies as a first name since 1912, peaking in 2013. 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.