Stafford

At the 2020 census, 44,382 Americans bore the surname Stafford — 764th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 6,735.

By the numbers

People: 44,382
Rank: 764th
How common: 1 in 6,735
Per 100,000: 14.9

Where the name comes from

From Old English stæþ (“landing place”) + ford.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 76.4%
Black, not Hispanic 14.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Hispanic or Latino 3.2%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Stafford

Thomas P. Stafford (1930–2024)American astronaut
James Stafford (born 1932)American Catholic cardinal
Jo Stafford (1917–2008)American singer
Jean Stafford (1915–1979)American author
Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1455–1483)English nobleman
Ed Stafford (born 1975)English explorer
Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1402–1460)British noble
Michelle Stafford (born 1965)American actress

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

Surnames like Stafford

Also a first name

Stafford has been given to 2,850 American babies as a first name since 1882, peaking in 1959. 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.