Walker

At the 2020 census, 504,833 Americans bore the surname Walker — 32nd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 592.

By the numbers

People: 504,833
Rank: 32nd
How common: 1 in 592
Per 100,000: 168.9

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 56.3%
Black, not Hispanic 34.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Walker

Paul Walker (1973–2013)American actor
Alice Walker (born 1944)American author and activist
Kyle Walker (born 1990)English association football player
John E. Walker (born 1941)British biochemist
Madam C. J. Walker (1867–1919)American entrepreneur
Scott Walker (born 1967)45th Governor of Wisconsin
Rebecca Walker (born 1969)American writer
William Walker (1824–1860)American filibuster, physician, lawyer, journalist and mercenary

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

Surnames like Walker

Also a first name

Walker has been given to 48,951 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2022. 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.