Witherspoon

Witherspoon is the 2,833rd most common surname in the United States, shared by 12,374 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 24,200.

By the numbers

People: 12,374
Rank: 2,833rd
How common: 1 in 24,200
Per 100,000: 4.1

Where the name comes from

Origin Middle English

Scottish habitational surname, perhaps from Middle English wether (“ram”) + spong (“narrow strip of land”).

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

Who bears the name

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

Black, not Hispanic 59.9%
White, not Hispanic 30.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.3%
Hispanic or Latino 3.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.4%

Notable people called Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon (born 1976)American actress
Jimmy Witherspoon (1923–1997)American jump blues singer
John Witherspoon (1723–1794)Scottish-American Presbyterian minister and Founding Father of the United States
Tim Witherspoon (born 1957)American boxer
Cora Witherspoon (1890–1957)actress
Reggie Witherspoon (born 1985)American sprinter
Dane Witherspoon (1957–2014)American actor

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

Surnames like Witherspoon

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.