Roman

72,391 people in the United States were counted with the surname Roman in the 2020 census, making it the 444th most common in the country. That is about one person in 4,129.

By the numbers

People: 72,391
Rank: 444th
How common: 1 in 4,129
Per 100,000: 24.2

Where the name comes from

From Old French Romain, from Latin Rōmānus.. Displaced native Romish.

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

Who bears the name

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

Hispanic or Latino 76.1%
White, not Hispanic 19.6%
Black, not Hispanic 2.0%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.2%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 0.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Roman

Petre Roman (born 1946)53rd Prime Minister of Romania
Nancy Roman (1925–2018)American astronomer and principal in the Hubble Space Telescope project
Ruth Roman (1922–1999)American actress
Aída Román (born 1988)Mexican archer
Johan Helmich Roman (1694–1758)Swedish Baroque composer
Letícia Román (1941–2025)Italian actress
Goku Román (born 1993)Spanish footballer
Rafet El Roman (born 1968)Turkish musician

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

Surnames like Roman

Also a first name

Roman has been given to 105,131 American babies as a first name since 1882, peaking in 2025. 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.