Russell

211,729 people in the United States were counted with the surname Russell in the 2020 census, making it the 108th most common in the country. That is about one person in 1,412.

By the numbers

People: 211,729
Rank: 108th
How common: 1 in 1,412
Per 100,000: 70.8

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

from Anglo-Norman Russel. Equivalent to russel.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 73.9%
Black, not Hispanic 16.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.0%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Russell

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)British philosopher and logician
Kurt Russell (born 1951)American actor
Bill Russell (1934–2022)American basketball player
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1846–1852 and 1865–1866
Jane Russell (1921–2011)American actress
Rosalind Russell (1907–1976)American actress
George Russell (born 1998)British racing driver
Henry Norris Russell (1877–1957)American astronomer

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

Surnames like Russell

Also a first name

Russell has been given to 361,476 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1960. 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.