Anderson

surname · Latin script

Meaning: ‘son of Ander or Anders’, northern Middle English or Scottish forms of Andrew

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ændɚsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Anderson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Antigua & Barbuda it is the most common surname.

rarermore common
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 388(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 424
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 459

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Anderson itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

China (inferred from the name graph)

≈3,000,000 people, est.

#98 (measured from records)

of 19M surnames

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
652 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 388 (inferred from the name graph)

New Zealand, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

AndersonLatin(measured from records)
אנדרסוןHebrew(measured from records)
ԱնդերսոնArmenian(measured from records)
앤더슨Hangul(measured from records)
ანდერსონიGeorgian(measured from records)

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

‘son of Ander or Anders’, northern Middle English or Scottish forms of Andrew

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 4 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Anderson counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Anderson is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
CN China—≈3,000,000 est.≈1 in 460—Anderson50
US United States#13784,4041 in 424784KAnderson652
SE Sweden#687211,085as Andersson1 in 48211KAnderson114
DK Denmark#282143,880as Andersen1 in 41144KAnderson107
GB United Kingdom#21≈140,000 est.≈1 in 459listedAnderson372
NO Norway#847103,146as Andersen1 in 53103KAnderson78
FI Finland—13,921as Andersson1 in 40014K—54
NZ New Zealand#12≈13,000 est.≈1 in 388—Anderson188
AG Antigua & Barbuda#1———Anderson7

Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Anderson is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname142 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico

    Also written Andersón, Ánderson, Ändërsön, A'Nderson, Änderson

  • a separate name5 spellings in the group

    Also written Ánderson, Ânderson, Andersón

  • Hindi surname9 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu

    Also written A̺̿n̺̿d̺̿e̺̿r̺̿s̺̿o̺̿n̺̿, Ändersön, Ánderson, Andersön, Ändërsön

  • Polish surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Poland, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Änderson

  • Greek surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Άντερσον, Αντερσον, Ανδερσον

  • Italian surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, United Kingdom, San Marino

    Also written Ändërsön, A͙n͙d͙e͙r͙s͙o͙n͙

103 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Anderson is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Patronymic meaning 'son of Andrew'; recorded as Duncan le fiz Andreu in Dumfries, 1296.

    as a nameScottish Surnames

  • In German, Patronymic surname; English/Scandinavian -son formation, with related Peterson, Janson, Johnson.

    as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 3: Morphologie der Familiennamen

  • In English, son of Andrew; first attested Henry Androsoun c1443 Black

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, Henry Androsoun c1443 Black; John Andrewson 1444 ib.; Robert Androwson, Androson 1455, 1482 GildY; Thomas Anderson 1471 FrY; Thomas Enderson 1674 HTSf. ‘Son of Andrew’.

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, A Scottish surname originating as a patronymic.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

19001920194019601980Carl David Anderson, b. 1905Robert Woodruff Anderson, b. 1917Philip Warren Anderson, b. 1923Adam West, b. 1928Kevin Anderson, b. 1960Steve Austin, b. 1964Pamela Anderson, b. 1967Gillian Anderson, b. 1968Paul Thomas Anderson, b. 1970Kristen Anderson-Lopez, b. 1972

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Anderson,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 113 sources across 63 countries.

Official registers attesting Anderson
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20102010784K#15
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20002000762K#12
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 20202020757K#15
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—1.4K#744
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.1K#902
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—755#537
FI FinlandDVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup)—729#2,479
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)2025703—

Reference works 7

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Anderson mean, and where does it come from?
‘son of Ander or Anders’, northern Middle English or Scottish forms of Andrew Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
What are other forms of the name Anderson?
In the etymology graph, Andrews is a form of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Anderson have the most bearers?
Mondonomo estimates about 3.0 million people named Anderson in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled anderson.
How common is the name Anderson?
In the United States, the national register counted 784,404 people named Anderson in 2010, about 1 in 424 residents.
How common is Anderson compared with other names?
In Antigua & Barbuda, Anderson is the most common surname of 30,187 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Anderson?
A machine transcription gives /ændɚsən/ (IPA) for English.

What do you want to know about Anderson?

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/anderson

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Anderson” — the most common surname in Antigua & Barbuda. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Anderson parses inside a full name →