Smith
surname · Latin script
Meaning: Occupational surname from Old English smið, ‘smith; metalworker’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/smɪθ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Smith is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the most common surname.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 108(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 125
- BGBulgaria≈1 in 130
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)
- #20 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 697 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 108 (inferred from the name graph)
2,442,977 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
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)
Occupational surname from Old English smið, ‘smith; metalworker’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Smith 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 | #1 | 2,442,977 | 1 in 136 | 2.4M | Smith | 697 |
| GB United Kingdom | #1 | ≈610,000 est. | ≈1 in 108 | 11K | Smith | 463 |
| CA Canada | #1 | ≈250,000 est. | ≈1 in 149 | 3 | Smith | 393 |
| EG Egypt | #100 | ≈240,000 est. | ≈1 in 434 | — | Smith | 69 |
| IT Italy | #1 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 291 | 1 | Smith | 141 |
| AU Australia | #1 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 133 | 1 | Smith | 381 |
| BG Bulgaria | #62 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 130 | — | Smith | 66 |
| IE Ireland | #1 | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 125 | — | Smith | 180 |
| NZ New Zealand | #1 | ≈38,000 est. | ≈1 in 131 | — | Smith | 224 |
2,442,977 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); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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)
Smith 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, Occupational surname for an iron worker/blacksmith. Early form ‘the Smith’; Robert the Smith at Dunkeld c.1199. Some Scots translated Gaelic Gobha.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from OE smið 'smith, blacksmith, farrier'; first attested Ecceard Smið c975 OEByn
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, English occupational surname; common via British settlement.
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
In English, English equivalent used in place of a German surname
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In English, A craftsperson who works metal into desired forms using a hammer and other tools, sometimes heating the metal to make it more workable, especially a blacksmith.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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 Smithb. 1580GBEnglish soldier, explorer, writer (1580–1631)
- Joseph Smithb. 1805USfounder of the Latter Day Saint movement and prophet (1805–1844)
- Edward Smithb. 1850GBcaptain of the RMS Titanic (1850–1912)
- C. Aubrey Smithb. 1863GBBritish actor (1863-1948)
- Mary Pickfordb. 1892CAnot in their usual nameCanadian actress and producer (1892–1979)
- Rosalynn Carterb. 1927USnot in their usual nameFirst Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981
- Will Smithb. 1968USAmerican actor, film producer and rapper (born 1968)
- Lil Jonb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican rapper and record producer
- Zadie Smithb. 1975GBEnglish novelist, essayist and short story writer (born 1975)
- Matt Smithb. 1982GBEnglish actor (born 1982)
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 115 sources across 60 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 2.4M | #1 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.4M | #1 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.4M | #1 |
Reference works 8
- 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)
- 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)
- Cognomix.it (Nomix s.r.l.) — Italian surname origin dictionary
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 Smith mean, and where does it come from?
- Occupational surname from Old English smið, ‘smith; metalworker’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- In which country does Smith have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.4 million people named Smith, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled smith.
- What are other forms of the name Smith?
- In the etymology graph, Smyth is a form of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Smith?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,442,977 people named Smith in 2010, about 1 in 136 residents.
- How common is Smith compared with other names?
- In the United States, Smith is the most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Smith?
- A machine transcription gives /smɪθ/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Smith?
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/smithThe 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, “Smith” — the most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.