Schell

At the 2020 census, 12,290 Americans bore the surname Schell — 2,861st out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 24,300.

By the numbers

People: 12,290
Rank: 2,861st
How common: 1 in 24,300
Per 100,000: 4.1

Where the name comes from

German surname, from the adjective Schelle (“jingle bell”). Compare Shell.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 90.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Black, not Hispanic 1.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Schell

Maximilian Schell (1930–2014)Swiss and Austrian film and stage actor
Maria Schell (1926–2005)Austrian-Swiss actress
Harry Schell (1921–1960)racecar driver
Catherine Schell (born 1944)Hungarian–British actress
Ronnie Schell (1931–2026)American actor, comedian and cartoon voice actor
Frank Schell (1884–1959)American rower
Anna Schell (born 1993)German freestyle wrestler
Ute Schell (born 1966)East German rower

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

Surnames like Schell

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.