Vance

Vance is the 754th most common surname in the United States, shared by 44,920 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 6,654.

By the numbers

People: 44,920
Rank: 754th
How common: 1 in 6,654
Per 100,000: 15.0

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

From a Southern English dialectal form of Old English fenn (“marsh, bog”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 78.8%
Black, not Hispanic 12.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Vance

JD Vance (born 1984)Vice President of the United States since 2025
Jack Vance (1916–2013)American mystery and speculative fiction writer
Cyrus Vance (1917–2002)United States Secretary of State from 1977 to 1980
Usha Vance (born 1986)Second Lady of the United States since 2025
Chris Vance (born 1971)British actor
Courtney B. Vance (born 1960)American actor
Vivian Vance (1909–1979)American actress
Zebulon Baird Vance (1830–1894)Confederate military officer in the American Civil War

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

Surnames like Vance

Also a first name

Vance has been given to 27,150 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1969. 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.