Tian

6,795 people in the United States were counted with the surname Tian in the 2020 census, making it the 5,007th most common in the country. That is about one person in 44,000.

By the numbers

People: 6,795
Rank: 5,007th
How common: 1 in 44,000
Per 100,000: 2.3

Where the name comes from

The pinyin romanization of cmn.

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

Who bears the name

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

Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 95.1%
White, not Hispanic 3.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 0.6%
Black, not Hispanic 0.6%
Hispanic or Latino 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.03%

Notable people called Tian

Tian Han (1898–1968)Chinese playwright, screenwriter, songwriter
Meng Tian (250 BC–209 BC)Chinese inventor and military general from the state of Qin during the Warring States period
Tian Zhuangzhuang (born 1952)Chinese filmmaker
Tian Qing (born 1986)Chinese badminton player
Jing Tian (born 1988)Chinese actress
Tian Liang (born 1979)Chinese diver
Tian Jia (born 1981)volleyball player
Tian Tao (born 1994)Chinese weightlifter

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

Also a first name

Tian has been given to 532 American babies as a first name since 1974, peaking in 2023. 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.