Richard

At the 2020 census, 51,000 Americans bore the surname Richard — 650th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 5,861.

By the numbers

People: 51,000
Rank: 650th
How common: 1 in 5,861
Per 100,000: 17.1

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

From Middle English Rycharde, from Old French Richard, from Medieval Latin Richardus, Ricohardus, from Frankish *Rīkahard, from Proto-Germanic *Rīkaharduz, a construction. Cognate with Old High German Rīcohard. Partially related to rich.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 67.0%
Black, not Hispanic 24.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Richard

Little Richard (1932–2020)American musician
Cliff Richard (born 1940)British singer
Pierre Richard (born 1934)French actor, film director, screenwriter and comedian
Maurice Richard (1921–2000)Canadian ice hockey player
Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (born 1944)cousin of Queen Elizabeth II; youngest grandchild of King George V and Queen Mary
Louis Claude Richard (1754–1821)French botanist
Pascal Richard (born 1964)Swiss cyclist
Achille Richard (1794–1852)French botanist

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

Surnames like Richard

Also a first name

Richard has been given to 2,587,082 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1946. 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.