New
loc · Latin script
Meaning: From a medieval nickname for someone new to a place; or person who lives by a yew tree
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
New is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 15K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 16K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 17K
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)
- Sources
- 400 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 7.8K (inferred from the name graph)
11,903 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Cameroon, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Nëw in CM Cameroon.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
From a medieval nickname for someone new to a place; or person who lives by a yew tree.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
New 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 | 11,903 | 1 in 28K | 12K | New | 400 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈4,000 est. | ≈1 in 16K | 4.8K | New | 177 |
| CM Cameroon | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 7.8K | — | Nëw | 7 |
| AU Australia | ≈1,500 est. | ≈1 in 17K | — | New | 149 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 33K | 1 | New | 112 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈330 est. | ≈1 in 15K | — | New | 55 |
| BS Bahamas | ≈15 est. | ≈1 in 22K | — | New | 8 |
11,903 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); 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)
New 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, (1) from OE nīwe, ME newe ‘new’, ‘the newcomer’; first attested William le Neuwe 1221 AssWa. (2) from residence near a yew tree, OE ēow, īw; first attested John atte Newe 1327 SRSo
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, topographic name for someone who lived by a yew tree, from a misdivision of the Middle English phrase atten ewe ‘at the yew’ (Old English cet deem eowe).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, nickname for a newcomer to an area, from Middle English newe ‘new’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, Recently made, or created.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, nina
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
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)
- Anthony Newb. 1747USAmerican politician (1747-1833)
- John C. Newb. 1831USAmerican politician
- Harry S. Newb. 1858USAmerican politician (1858–1937)
- Elisa Newb. 1959USAmerican academic
- Steve Newb. 1960GBEnglish rock guitarist (1960–2010)
- Peter Newb. 1971CACanadian voice actor
- Chris Newb. 1981GBEnglish actor
- Hannah Newb. 1984GBBritish actress
- Gemma Newb. 1986NZNew Zealand conductor
- Tarah Newb. 1987USactress
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 31 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 12K | #3,011 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 12K | #2,858 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 11K | #3,091 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 4.8K | #1,677 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2021 | 1 | #2,059 |
| 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 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
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 New mean, and where does it come from?
- From a medieval nickname for someone new to a place; or person who lives by a yew tree. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does New have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 12 thousand people named New, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled new.
- How common is the name New?
- In the United States, the national register counted 11,903 people named New in 2010, about 1 in 28 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about New?
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/newThe 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, “New”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.