Woods

172,463 people in the United States were counted with the surname Woods in the 2020 census, making it the 147th most common in the country. That is about one person in 1,733.

By the numbers

People: 172,463
Rank: 147th
How common: 1 in 1,733
Per 100,000: 57.7

Where the name comes from

Origin Middle English

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 55.9%
Black, not Hispanic 34.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Woods

Tiger Woods (born 1975)American golfer
James Woods (born 1947)American actor
Zach Woods (born 1984)American actor
Xavier Woods (born 1986)American professional wrestler
Chris Woods (born 1959)English footballer
Leona Woods (1919–1986)American nuclear physicist
Michael Woods (born 1986)Canadian road cyclist
Ilene Woods (1926–2010)American actress and singer

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

Surnames like Woods

Also a first name

Woods has been given to 699 American babies as a first name since 1912, 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.