Burgess
surname · Latin script
Meaning: ‘Freeman of a borough, burgess’, from Middle English burgeis via Old French
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 24 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈbɝdʒəs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Burgess is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 2.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.4K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.5K
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)
- Record sources
- 539 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 2.1K (inferred from the name graph)
73,931 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)- Middle Englishburgeis(measured from records)
- OldFrench(measured from records)
‘Freeman of a borough, burgess’, from Middle English burgeis via Old French.
Cited for this meaning 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Burgess 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 | #401 | 73,931 | 1 in 4.5K | 74K | Burgess | 539 |
| GB United Kingdom | #189 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.4K | listed | Burgess | 279 |
| AU Australia | #178 | ≈12,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Burgess | 232 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 12K | — | Burgess | 12 |
| CA Canada | #367 | ≈8,500 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | — | Burgess | 217 |
| NZ New Zealand | #185 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.5K | — | Burgess | 124 |
73,931 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 hanks-dictionary-surnames-1988 register. 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)Burgess is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
Transferred use of the surname, in origin a status name from the Old French word burgeis ‘freeman of a borough’ (a derivative of burg ‘town’, of Germanic origin).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, An inhabitant of a borough with full rights; a citizen.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Anthony, British writer; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
English: transferred use of the surname, which is derived from the Old French word burgeis freeman of a borough (a derivative of burg town, of Germanic origin).
as a word
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)- John Burgessb. 1844USAmerican political scientist (1844–1931)
- Ernest Burgessb. 1886USAmerican sociologist (1886–1966)
- Mitchell Burgessb. 1901USAmerican writer and producer
- Guy Burgessb. 1911GBBritish-born radio producer, intelligence and Foreign Office officer and double agent
- Anthony Burgessb. 1917GBEnglish writer and composer (1917–1993)
- Colin Burgessb. 1946AUAustralian musician
- Michael C. Burgessb. 1950USAmerican politician
- Melvin Burgessb. 1954GBBritish children's writer
- Don Burgessb. 1956USAmerican cinematographer
- Tituss Burgessb. 1979USAmerican actor and 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).
How to address them
(machine-generated)Evidence
(measured from records)43 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 24 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 74K | #444 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 72K | #407 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 71K | #456 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- 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)
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 Burgess mean, and where does it come from?
- ‘Freeman of a borough, burgess’, from Middle English burgeis via Old French. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Burgess?
- In the etymology graph, Borghese is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Burgess?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈbɝdʒəs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Burgess have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 74 thousand people named Burgess, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled burgess.
- How common is the name Burgess?
- In the United States, the national register counted 73,931 people named Burgess in 2010, about 1 in 4.5 thousand residents.
- How common is Burgess compared with other names?
- In the United States, Burgess is the 401st most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Burgess?
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/burgessThe 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, “Burgess” — the 401st most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.