Wilbur

8,766 people in the United States were counted with the surname Wilbur in the 2020 census, making it the 3,929th most common in the country. That is about one person in 34,100.

By the numbers

People: 8,766
Rank: 3,929th
How common: 1 in 34,100
Per 100,000: 2.9

Where the name comes from

Origin a matronymic

From an Old English female given name Wilburg, from wil (“will”) + burh (“fortress”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 88.0%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 3.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.8%
Black, not Hispanic 2.1%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.3%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.0%

Notable people called Wilbur

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017)American poet
Crane Wilbur (1886–1973)American actor, film writer, director
George P. Wilbur (1941–2023)American actor

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

Surnames like Wilbur

Also a first name

Wilbur has been given to 57,196 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1918. 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.