Wells

At the 2020 census, 169,750 Americans bore the surname Wells — 152nd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 1,761.

By the numbers

People: 169,750
Rank: 152nd
How common: 1 in 1,761
Per 100,000: 56.8

Where the name comes from

Origin Middle English

From Old English wella, genitive plural of well (“spring”), in reference to a residence near a group of springs. The original use of the genitive case here would've indicated origin. The -s ending of the modern form would be added later on upon reanalysis after the breakdown of the case system (outside of pronouns) that occurred in the development of English.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 71.0%
Black, not Hispanic 19.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.9%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Wells

H. G. Wells (1866–1946)English writer
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)American journalist and civil rights activist
Junior Wells (1934–1998)American Chicago blues vocalist, harmonica player, and recording artist
Allan Wells (born 1952)British sprinter
Kitty Wells (1919–2012)American country music singer
Claudia Wells (born 1966)American actress
Dawn Wells (1938–2020)American actress
Nahki Wells (born 1990)Bermudian footballer

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

Surnames like Wells

Also a first name

Wells has been given to 7,164 American babies as a first name since 1881, peaking in 2025. 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.