Salem

8,836 people in the United States were counted with the surname Salem in the 2020 census, making it the 3,902nd most common in the country. That is about one person in 33,800.

By the numbers

People: 8,836
Rank: 3,902nd
How common: 1 in 33,800
Per 100,000: 3.0

Where the name comes from

Origin Arabic

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 83.4%
Hispanic or Latino 5.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 3.8%
Black, not Hispanic 3.0%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.2%

Notable people called Salem

Carlos Salem (born 1959)Argentine writer
Pamela Salem (1944–2024)British actress
Raphaël Salem (1898–1963)French mathematician of Greek origin
Mohanad Salem (born 1985)Emirati footballer
Mamdouh Salem (1918–1988)Prime Minister of Egypt
Lyes Salem (born 1973)French-Algerian actor, film director and screenwriter
Atef Salem (1927–2002)film director
Moatasem Salem (born 1980)Egyptian footballer

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

Surnames like Salem

Also a first name

Salem has been given to 11,178 American babies as a first name since 1912, peaking in 2023. 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.