Preston

45,056 people in the United States were counted with the surname Preston in the 2020 census, making it the 753rd most common in the country. That is about one person in 6,634.

By the numbers

People: 45,056
Rank: 753rd
How common: 1 in 6,634
Per 100,000: 15.1

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

From Old English prēost (“priest”) + tūn (“settlement”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 71.1%
Black, not Hispanic 19.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%

Notable people called Preston

Kelly Preston (1962–2020)American actress
Billy Preston (1946–2006)American R&B musician
Chanel Preston (born 1985)former American pornographic actress
Carrie Preston (born 1967)American actress
Douglas Preston (born 1956)American journalist and author
Paul Preston (born 1946)British historian
Don Preston (born 1932)American musician
Thomas Austin Preston (1928–2012)American poker player

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

Surnames like Preston

Also a first name

Preston has been given to 123,757 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2007. 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.