Gatlin
surname · Latin script
Meaning: perhaps from a medieval nickname meaning ‘companion, ne’er-do-well’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Gatlin is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 31K(measured from records)
- CACanada≈1 in 58K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 80K
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)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 360 (measured from records)
- 1 in 31K (inferred from the name graph)
10,785 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
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)
perhaps from a medieval nickname meaning ‘companion, ne’er-do-well’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Where in the world(measured from records)
Gatlin 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 | 10,785 | 1 in 31K | 11K | Gatlin | 360 |
| EG Egypt | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 56K | — | Gatlin | 5 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈830 est. | ≈1 in 80K | — | Gatlin | 39 |
| IT Italy | ≈700 est. | ≈1 in 89K | — | Gatlin | 3 |
| CA Canada | ≈650 est. | ≈1 in 58K | 1 | Gatlin | 32 |
| TN Tunisia | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 52K | — | Gatlin | 4 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 45K | — | Gatlin | 2 |
| EE Estonia | ≈26 est. | ≈1 in 47K | 54 | — | 3 |
| IS Iceland | ≈7 est. | ≈1 in 52K | 1 | Gatlin | 1 |
10,785 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; Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; Statistics Estonia — per-name Population Register counts (nimed); Þjóðskrá Íslands — Name frequencies (NafnTíðni, registry). 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)
Gatlin is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Possibly an altered spelling of German Gdttling, from a Germanic personal name formed with god ‘god’ or god ‘good’ -I- -ling suffix of affiliation, or, like Gattling (of which this may also be an altered form), a nickname from Middle High German getlinc ‘companion’, ‘kinsman’. Compare 1.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, of uncertain origin; probably a variant of Catlin or Gadling, a nickname from Old English gcedeling ‘kinsman’, ‘companion’, but also ‘low fellow’.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Alfred Moore Gatlinb. 1790USAmerican politician (1790–1841)
- Richard Caswell Gatlinb. 1809USConfederate Army general (1809-1896)
- Larry Gatlinb. 1948USAmerican country and gospel singer and songwriter
- Rudy Gatlinb. 1952USAmerican musician
- Keith Gatlinb. 1964USAmerican basketball coach and basketball player
- Justin Gatlinb. 1982USAmerican sprinter
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 14 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 11K | #3,329 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 10K | #3,430 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 10K | #3,226 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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 Gatlin mean, and where does it come from?
- perhaps from a medieval nickname meaning ‘companion, ne’er-do-well’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How common is the name Gatlin?
- In the United States, the national register counted 10,785 people named Gatlin in 2010, about 1 in 31 thousand residents.
- In which country does Gatlin have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 11 thousand people named Gatlin, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled gatlin.
- Where is Gatlin most common?
- Gatlin is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 31 thousand people carrying it.
What do you want to know about Gatlin?
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/gatlinThe 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, “Gatlin”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.