Welsh

At the 2020 census, 28,953 Americans bore the surname Welsh — 1,190th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 10,300.

By the numbers

People: 28,953
Rank: 1,190th
How common: 1 in 10,300
Per 100,000: 9.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

From Middle English Walsch, Welische, from Anglian Old English wǣlisċ (“Briton; Roman; Celt”), from Proto-West Germanic *walhisk, from Proto-Germanic *walhiskaz (“Celt; later Roman”) (thus cognate with German welsch, Dutch Waals, Danish vælsk, Old Norse valskr), from *walhaz (“Celt, Roman”) (compare Old English wealh), from the name of the cel-gau tribe, the Volcae (recorded only in Latin contexts).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 87.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
Black, not Hispanic 3.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Welsh

Irvine Welsh (born 1958)Scottish writer
Kenneth Welsh (1942–2022)Canadian actor
Mary Welsh Hemingway (1908–1986)American journalist
Matt Welsh (born 1976)Australian swimmer
Robin Welsh (1869–1934)British tennis player
Stephen Welsh (born 2000)Scottish association football player
John Welsh (born 1984)English association football player
Thomas Welsh (born 1996)American basketball player

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

Surnames like Welsh

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.