Sheppard

At the 2020 census, 35,274 Americans bore the surname Sheppard — 977th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 8,474.

By the numbers

People: 35,274
Rank: 977th
How common: 1 in 8,474
Per 100,000: 11.8

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

From Middle English, from schepherde (“shepherd”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 64.9%
Black, not Hispanic 25.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Sheppard

Kate Sheppard (1847–1934)prominent member of New Zealand's women's suffrage
Scott S. Sheppard (born 1977)American astronomer
Mark Sheppard (born 1964)English actor and musician
Mel Sheppard (1883–1942)American athlete
W. Morgan Sheppard (1932–2019)British actor
Jack Sheppard (1702–1724)English thief and prison escapee
Steve Sheppard (born 1954)American basketball player
Reed Sheppard (born 2004)American basketball player

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

Surnames like Sheppard

Also a first name

Sheppard has been given to 716 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2025. 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.