Rutherford
26,667 people in the United States were counted with the surname Rutherford in the 2020 census, making it the 1,290th most common in the country. That is about one person in 11,200.
By the numbers
- People
- 26,667
- Rank
- 1,290th
- How common
- 1 in 11,200
- Per 100,000
- 8.9
Where the name comes from
Origin Old English
From Old English hryþer (“cattle”) + ford (“ford”). The first element is from Proto-Germanic *hrunþaz.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Rutherford described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Rutherford
- Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937)New Zealand physicist
- Margaret Rutherford (1892–1972)British actress
- Daniel Rutherford (1749–1819)British physician, chemist, botanist and physicist
- Ann Rutherford (1917–2012)Canadian-American actress
- Joseph Franklin Rutherford (1869–1942)American lawyer, Watch Tower Society president
- Kelly Rutherford (born 1968)American actress
- Greg Rutherford (born 1986)British long jumper
- Mike Rutherford (born 1950)British pop rock musician, guitarist and songwriter
People named Rutherford with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Rutherford
Also a first name
Rutherford has been given to 729 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1921. 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.