Black
loc · Latin script
Meaning: (i) Person with dark complexion or hair; (ii) a different form of Blake; (iii) anglicization of Norman Blanc ‘white’; (iv) translation of Gaelic dark-names like Duff; (v) translation of German/Jewish
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Black is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 2K
- USUnited States1 in 2.1K
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)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 584 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 955 (inferred from the name graph)
154,738 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Mauritania, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Blåċk in EG Egypt.
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) Person with dark complexion or hair; (ii) a different form of Blake; (iii) anglicization of Norman Blanc ‘white’; (iv) translation of Gaelic dark-names like Duff; (v) translation of German/Jewish names meaning ‘black’ like Schwarz.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Black, 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)
Black 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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 154,738 | 1 in 2.1K | 155K | Black | 584 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈37,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | listed | Black | 345 |
| CA Canada | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Black | 262 |
| EG Egypt | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 7K | — | Blåċk | 36 |
| SD Sudan | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Black | 11 |
| AU Australia | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Black | 237 |
| MR Mauritania | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 955 | — | Black | 7 |
| BZ Belize | ≈260 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Black | 15 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | 79 | 1 in 1.3K | 79 | — | 7 |
154,738 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; the reaney-english-surnames-1991 register; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 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)
Black 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 Old English blaec ‘black’; in Scotland the related blác ‘white/bright’ usually became Blake. Hugh Niger is noted in 1178; Thomas Blak in 1353.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, (Nobel 1988); Sea Europe, Asia;
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, James. British pharmacologist
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, various rivers, US
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
In English, OE blæc 'black, dark-complexioned'; first attested Wulfhun þes Blaca 901 OEByn (Somerset)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
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)
- Joseph Blackb. 1728GBScottish physicist and chemist (1728–1799)
- James Whyte Blackb. 1924GBScottish doctor and pharmacologist (1924–2010)
- Shirley Templeb. 1928USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and diplomat (1928–2014)
- Karen Blackb. 1939USAmerican actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter (1939-2013)
- Jack Blackb. 1969USAmerican actor, comedian, singer, musician and producer (born 1969)
- Holly Blackb. 1971USAmerican children's fiction writer
- Claudia Blackb. 1972AUAustralian actress
- Tori Blackb. 1988USAmerican pornographic actress
- Luke Blackb. 1992RSSerbian singer-songwriter (born 1992)
- Rebecca Blackb. 1997USAmerican singer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 49 sources across 31 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 155K | #174 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 151K | #175 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 150K | #160 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 79 | #183 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of English Surnames (Reaney & Wilson, 1991) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | Scottish Surnames (Ross, 1994) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | The Penguin Book of Baby Names (David Pickering) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Black mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) Person with dark complexion or hair; (ii) a different form of Blake; (iii) anglicization of Norman Blanc ‘white’; (iv) translation of Gaelic dark-names like Duff; (v) translation of German/Jewish… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Black have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 155 thousand people named Black, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled black.
- How common is the name Black?
- In the United States, the national register counted 154,738 people named Black in 2010, about 1 in 2.1 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Black?
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/blackThe 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, “Black”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.