Rowan

Rowan is the 2,626th most common surname in the United States, shared by 13,418 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 22,300.

By the numbers

People: 13,418
Rank: 2,626th
How common: 1 in 22,300
Per 100,000: 4.5

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

Anglicised from the Irish saints' name Ruadhán (“little red one”), or as a surname from Ó Ruadháin (“descendant of Ruadhán”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 84.8%
Black, not Hispanic 6.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.5%
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 Rowan

Kelly Rowan (born 1965)Canadian actress
Ellis Rowan (1848–1922)Australian artist, botanical illustrator and botanical collector

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

Surnames like Rowan

Also a first name

Rowan has been given to 72,853 American babies as a first name since 1916, 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.