Martin
surname · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Martin is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 18th most common surname. In English, recorded as from the personal name Martin, from Latin Martinus, a derivative of Mars.
- ESSpain1 in 105(measured from records)
- IEIreland≈1 in 386
- CACanada≈1 in 426
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)
- #80 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 670 (measured from records)
- 1 in 105 (inferred from the name graph)
702,625 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Spain
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)
from the personal name Martin, from Latin Martinus, a derivative of Mars
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 9 languages in the etymology graph.
How Martin is read(measured from records)
Martin is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English65%
from the personal name Martin, from Latin Martinus, a derivative of Mars
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
O Martain; Irish Martins were kinsmen of the O'Neills of Tyrone and a prominent Connacht sept of the 14 Tribes of Galway; attested Giolla Earnain O Martain (d. 1218).
as a nameIrish family names
From Latin Martinus, linked to Mars; surname recorded in Scotland from 1386. Gilmartin marks devotion to St Martin.
as a nameScottish Surnames
- Spanish17%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Martin in Spanish.
- French7.2%
From Latin Martinus, 'of Mars', the Roman god of war.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From Latin Martinus, from Mars. Cited as the dead husband’s name that could become a family surname.
as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Martin 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 | #18 | 702,625 | 1 in 473 | 703K | Martin | 670 |
| ES Spain | #12 | 475,139 | 1 in 105 | 475K | Martin | 278 |
| FR France | — | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 364 | 320K | Martin | 20 |
| GB United Kingdom | #11 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 430 | 9 | Martin | 434 |
| CA Canada | #10 | ≈89,000 est. | ≈1 in 426 | 12 | Martin | 340 |
| IE Ireland | #7 | ≈13,000 est. | ≈1 in 386 | — | Martin | 187 |
702,625 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender. 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)
Martin is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, Surname variant showing vowel alternation a~e in the atlas plate; bearer count 21573.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 1: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen I, Vokalismus
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)
- Thérèse of Lisieuxb. 1873FRnot in their usual nameFrench Discalced Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church (1873–1897)
- Dean Martinb. 1917USAmerican singer, actor, comedian and film producer (1917–1995)
- George Martinb. 1926GBEnglish record producer (1926–2016)
- Paul Martinb. 1938CAprime minister of Canada from 2003 to 2006
- Steve Martinb. 1945USAmerican comedian, actor, musician and writer (born 1945)
- George R. R. Martinb. 1948USAmerican writer and television producer (born 1948)
- Linda Martinb. 1952GBNorthern Irish singer
- Micheál Martinb. 1960IETaoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland (2020–2022, 2025–present)
- Kellie Martinb. 1975USAmerican actress
- Chris Martinb. 1977GBEnglish singer-songwriter (born 1977)
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 193 sources across 90 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 703K | #20 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 679K | #22 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 673K | #17 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 475K | #10 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 475K | #10 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des noms de famille (1891–2000) | 1991 | 22K | — |
Reference works 14
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
- Lietuvių pavardžių žodynas (Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
- Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)
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 Martin mean, and where does it come from?
- from the personal name Martin, from Latin Martinus, a derivative of Mars Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Martin have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 703 thousand people named Martin, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled martin.
- Where is Martin most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Martin is densest in Spain — about 1 in 105 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Martin?
- In the etymology graph, Martins, Martino and Marten are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Martin?
- In the United States, the national register counted 702,625 people named Martin in 2010, about 1 in 473 residents.
- How common is Martin compared with other names?
- In the United States, Martin is the 18th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Martin?
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/martinThe same 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), and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Martin” — the 18th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.