Kerr

surname · Latin script

Meaning: person who lives by an area of wet boggy ground; from northern Middle English kerr, from Old Norse kjarr

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

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

Kerr is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 2.5K(inferred from the name graph)
  • JMJamaica≈1 in 2.8K
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.8K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

44,711 people, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
503 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 2.5K (inferred from the name graph)

Australia, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

KerrLatin(measured from records)
케르Hangul(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)

person who lives by an area of wet boggy ground; from northern Middle English kerr, from Old Norse kjarr

Sources 1

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

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Kerr 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 Kerr is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#62344,7111 in 7.4K45KKerr503
GB United Kingdom#236≈23,000 est.≈1 in 2.9K9Kerr277
AU Australia#211≈10,000 est.≈1 in 2.5K1Kerr210
CA Canada#280≈10,000 est.≈1 in 3.7K—Kerr245
KP North Korea#625≈4,800 est.≈1 in 5.3K—Kerr4
NZ New Zealand#193≈1,700 est.≈1 in 2.8K—Kerr137
JM Jamaica#105≈1,000 est.≈1 in 2.8K—Kerr26

44,711 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). 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)

Kerr is also recorded as 3 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Argentina

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Kërr

  • German surname2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Austria

    Also written Kèrr

  • Arabic surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Egypt, United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia

    Languages: Arabic, Maltese

    Also written Kérr, Kěrr, Kęrr, Kërr

71 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)

Kerr 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, From Brittonic caer ‘fort’ or Gaelic càrr ‘bog, moss’; first recorded at Peebles in 1190 as Johannes Ker.

    as a nameScottish Surnames

  • In English, Generalised Borders location name; etymology not fully shown on this page fragment.

    as a nameScottish Surnames

  • topographic name for someone who lived by a patch of wet ground overgrown with brushwood, northern Middle English kerr (Old Norse kjarr). A legend grew up that the Kerrs were left-handed, on theory that the name is derived from Gaelic cearr ‘wronghanded’, ‘left-handed’.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • Transferred use of the surname, which is a northern English local name for someone who lived by a patch of wet ground overgrown with brushwood (Old Norse kjarr). I41

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • This surname has also absorbed examples of German Kehr.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

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)

18001850190019502000John Kerr, b. 1824John Robert Kerr, b. 1914Deborah Kerr, b. 1921Roy Kerr, b. 1934Philip Kerr, b. 1956Steve Kerr, b. 1965David Kerr, b. 1967Miranda Kerr, b. 1983Sam Kerr, b. 1993Josh Kerr, b. 1997
  • John Kerrb. 1824GBScottish physicist and pioneer in the field of electro-optics (1824–1907)
  • John Robert Kerrb. 1914AUGovernor-General of Australia (1914–1991)
  • Deborah Kerrb. 1921GBBritish actress (1921–2007)
  • Roy Kerrb. 1934NZNew Zealand mathematician and bridge player
  • Philip Kerrb. 1956GBBritish novelist (1956–2018)
  • Steve Kerrb. 1965USAmerican basketball player and coach
  • David Kerrb. 1967GBBritish film and television director (born 1967)
  • Miranda Kerrb. 1983AUAustralian model
  • Sam Kerrb. 1993AUAustralian soccer player
  • Josh Kerrb. 1997GBScottish runner, record holder (born 1997)

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 Mr Kerr,
InformalHi Kerr,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 53 sources across 30 countries.

Official registers attesting Kerr
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201045K#771
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202043K#780
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200043K#729
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 6

  • Dictionary of American Family Names
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

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 Kerr mean, and where does it come from?
person who lives by an area of wet boggy ground; from northern Middle English kerr, from Old Norse kjarr Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
How do you pronounce Kerr?
A machine transcription gives /kɛɹ/ (IPA) for English.
In which country does Kerr have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 45 thousand people named Kerr, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kerr.
How common is the name Kerr?
In the United States, the national register counted 44,711 people named Kerr in 2010, about 1 in 7.4 thousand residents.
How common is Kerr compared with other names?
In the United States, Kerr is the 623rd most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.

What do you want to know about Kerr?

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

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, “Kerr” — the 623rd most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Kerr parses inside a full name →