Tyson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) from a medieval nickname for a hot-tempered person; (ii) a different form of Dyson
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/taɪsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tyson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Liberia it is the 4th most common surname.
- LRLiberia≈1 in 1.3K(inferred from the name graph)
- GHGhana≈1 in 2.9K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 9.8K
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 470 (measured from records)
- 1 in 253 (inferred from the name graph)
≈200,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
St. Kitts & Nevis
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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)
(i) from a medieval nickname for a hot-tempered person; (ii) a different form of Dyson
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Tyson, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tyson 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Tyson | 17 |
| US United States | #964 | 28,947 | 1 in 11K | 39K | Tyson | 470 |
| GH Ghana | #216 | ≈10,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Tyson | 19 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈6,700 est. | ≈1 in 9.8K | 55 | Tyson | 207 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈4,100 est. | ≈1 in 25K | — | Tyson | 23 |
| LR Liberia | #4 | ≈3,900 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Tyson | 2 |
| KN St. Kitts & Nevis | — | 213 | 1 in 253 | 213 | — | 18 |
| DM Dominica | — | 97 | 1 in 765 | 97 | — | 4 |
| GD Grenada | — | 45 | 1 in 2.5K | 45 | — | 1 |
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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); St Kitts & Nevis — Register of Electors 2026; Dominica — Revised List of Electors May 2025; Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025. 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Tyson is also recorded in 3 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 OFr tison ‘firebrand’; first attested Gilbert Tison 1086 DB (Nottinghamshire)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
Mainly U.S.: transferred use of the surname, which is of dual origin. In part it is a metronymic from the medieval woman’s given name Dye, pet form of Dionysia, and in part it is anickname for a hot-tempered person, from Old French tison ‘firebrand’. As a given name it is often taken as an expanded form or patronymic from Ty.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, someone of a fiery temperament, from OF tison firebrand (L titio, gen. titionis). Tyssen see Thiess Tytel see Teitelbaum
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
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)
- Edward Tysonb. 1651GBEnglish scientist and physician, 1651–1708
- Cicely Tysonb. 1924USAmerican actress (1924–2021)
- Ian Tysonb. 1933CACanadian singer-songwriter (1933–2022)
- Laura D. Tysonb. 1947USAmerican business academic (born 1947)
- Richard Tysonb. 1956USAmerican actor
- Neil deGrasse Tysonb. 1958USAmerican astrophysicist and science communicator
- Barbara Tysonb. 1964CACanadian actress
- Cathy Tysonb. 1965GBEnglish actress
- Mike Tysonb. 1966USAmerican boxer and media personality (born 1966)
- Hunter Tysonb. 2000USAmerican basketball player (born 2000)
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 79 sources across 42 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 39K | #1,071 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 565 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 259 | #1,071 |
| GD Grenada | Grenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 2025 | 2025 | 8 | #142 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2021 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2022 | 3 | #703 |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2019 | 3 | #418 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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)
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 Tyson mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) from a medieval nickname for a hot-tempered person; (ii) a different form of Dyson Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Tyson?
- A machine transcription gives /taɪsən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Tyson have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 200 thousand people named Tyson in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tyson.
- Where is Tyson most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Tyson is densest in St. Kitts & Nevis — about 1 in 253 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Tyson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 28,947 people named Tyson in 2010, about 1 in 11 thousand residents.
- How common is Tyson compared with other names?
- In Liberia, Tyson is the 4th most common surname of 10,200 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Tyson?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tysonThe 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, “Tyson” — the 4th most common surname in Liberia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.