Welch

At the 2020 census, 103,903 Americans bore the surname Welch — 296th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 2,877.

By the numbers

People: 103,903
Rank: 296th
How common: 1 in 2,877
Per 100,000: 34.8

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

variant of Walsch, from Old English welisc, wīelisċ, from Proto-West Germanic *walhisk, from Proto-Germanic *walhiskaz.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 80.3%
Black, not Hispanic 10.4%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Welch

Raquel Welch (1940–2023)American actress
Florence Welch (born 1986)British singer
Jack Welch (1935–2020)American executive: General Electric CEO
Brian Welch (born 1970)American guitarist
Michael Welch (born 1987)American actor
Peter Welch (born 1947)United States Senator from Vermont since 2023
Bob Welch (1945–2012)American musician
Gillian Welch (born 1967)American musician

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

Surnames like Welch

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.