Sampson

Sampson is the 913th most common surname in the United States, shared by 37,721 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 7,924.

By the numbers

People: 37,721
Rank: 913th
How common: 1 in 7,924
Per 100,000: 12.6

Where the name comes from

A variant of Samson.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 58.0%
Black, not Hispanic 29.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%

Notable people called Sampson

Cesár Sampson (born 1983)Austrian singer–songwriter
Nikos Sampson (1935–2001)Cypriot politician
Will Sampson (1933–1987)Muscogee Creek actor from Oklahoma
Ralph Sampson (born 1960)American basketball player
Holly Sampson (born 1973)American actress and pornographic performer
Angus Sampson (born 1979)Australian actor
Daz Sampson (born 1974)British singer, producer and broadcaster
Deborah Sampson (1760–1827)Continental Army soldier

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

Surnames like Sampson

Also a first name

Sampson has been given to 3,901 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2017. 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.