Waite

17,416 people in the United States were counted with the surname Waite in the 2020 census, making it the 2,028th most common in the country. That is about one person in 17,200.

By the numbers

People: 17,416
Rank: 2,028th
How common: 1 in 17,200
Per 100,000: 5.8

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

English surname for a watchman of Norman origin, from the verb wait. Sometimes confused with White or Wheat.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 83.9%
Black, not Hispanic 7.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Waite

Ralph Waite (1928–2014)American actor
A. E. Waite (1857–1942)British occultist mystic, poet and writer
Morrison Waite (1816–1888)American jurist (1816–1888); Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1874 to 1888
John Waite (born 1952)British musician
Genevieve Waite (1948–2019)South African singer and actress

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

Surnames like Waite

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.