Tan

Tan is the 856th most common surname in the United States, shared by 39,432 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 7,580.

By the numbers

People: 39,432
Rank: 856th
How common: 1 in 7,580
Per 100,000: 13.2

Where the name comes from

Origin Mandarin

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 91.5%
White, not Hispanic 3.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.1%
Hispanic or Latino 1.6%
Black, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.08%

Notable people called Tan

Amy Tan (born 1952)American novelist
Tan Zhongyi (born 1991)Chinese chess player
Tan Dun (born 1957)Chinese composer
Shaun Tan (born 1974)Australian illustrator, writer, and animated filmmaker
Tan Sitong (1865–1898)Chinese philosopher
Tan Ya-Ting (born 1993)Taiwanese archer
Lewis Tan (born 1987)British actor and martial artist
Tan Wee Kiong (born 1989)Malaysian badminton player

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

Surnames like Tan

Also a first name

Tan has been given to 597 American babies as a first name since 1976, peaking in 1985. 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.