Spence

35,005 people in the United States were counted with the surname Spence in the 2020 census, making it the 984th most common in the country. That is about one person in 8,539.

By the numbers

People: 35,005
Rank: 984th
How common: 1 in 8,539
Per 100,000: 11.7

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 68.7%
Black, not Hispanic 21.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Spence

Michael Spence (born 1943)American economist
Djed Spence (born 2000)English association football player
Bruce Spence (born 1945)New Zealand actor
Frances Spence (1922–2012)American physicist and computer scientist
Mike Spence (1936–1968)British racing driver
Skip Spence (1946–1999)Canadian-American musician
Errol Spence (born 1990)American boxer
Joe Spence (1898–1966)English footballer

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

Surnames like Spence

Also a first name

Spence has been given to 1,114 American babies as a first name since 1902, peaking in 1970. 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.