Hosier

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from OE hosa ‘hose’; a dealer or maker of stockings and socks, later also related to OFr *hosier; first attested William Husier 1180 Oseney (O)

(measured from records)Officially recorded in 4 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020

/ˈhoʊ.zi.ɚ/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary

Say it in

Hosier is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In South Sudan it is the 32nd most common surname.

  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 97K(inferred from the name graph)
  • USUnited States1 in 107K
  • ESSpain1 in 8.3M

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)

3,104 people, 2010

Record sources
245 (measured from records)

corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling

strongest: highest-authority source

≈1 in 9.1K (inferred from the name graph)

South Sudan, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Meaning & origin

(measured from records)

from OE hosa ‘hose’; a dealer or maker of stockings and socks, later also related to OFr *hosier; first attested William Husier 1180 Oseney (O).

Cited for this meaning 1

  • A Dictionary of English Surnames

Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.

Where in the world

(measured from records)

Hosier 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.

Where Hosier is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—3,1041 in 107K3.1KHosier245
SS South Sudan#32≈1,200 est.≈1 in 9.1K—Hosier1
GB United Kingdom—≈680 est.≈1 in 97KlistedHosier85
EG Egypt—≈670 est.≈1 in 156K—Hosier2
IT Italy—≈240 est.≈1 in 261K—Hosier6
IE Ireland—≈77 est.≈1 in 67K—Hosier1
SG Singapore—≈58 est.≈1 in 108K—Hosier3

3,104 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)

Hosier 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 name for a maker or seller of leggings, from an agent derivative of Middle English hose (Old English hosa). Hose was the regular term for garments worn on the legs until the 18th century.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, gings, from an agent deriv. of ME hose (OE hosa). Hose was the regular name for garments worn on the legs until the 18th cent. Cf. Heuse. Horsier see Ostler

    as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles

  • occupational name for a fowler, a variant of Osler, or for an innkeeper, a reduced form of Ostler. In both cases, the initial H- is inorganic.

    as a nameDictionary of American Family Names

  • In English, from an agent deriv. of ME hose (OE hosa). Hose was the regular name for garments worn on the legs until the 18th cent. Cf. Heuse.

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • occupational name for a maker of hose (garments for the legs), from Middle High German hose (see Hose 3) + the agent suffix -r.

    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)
16001700180019002000Francis Hosier, b. 1673Harry Hosier, b. 1750John Hosier, b. 1928Gerald D. Hosier, b. 1941

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)
FormalDear Hosier,
InformalHello,

Evidence

(measured from records)

12 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 4 countries.

Official registers attesting Hosier
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 201020103.1K#10,380
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 200020002.8K#10,404
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 202020202.3K#12,791
GB United KingdomA Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988)———
US United Stateswru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.)———

Reference works 4

  • 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)

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 Hosier mean, and where does it come from?
from OE hosa ‘hose’; a dealer or maker of stockings and socks, later also related to OFr *hosier; first attested William Husier 1180 Oseney (O). Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
How do you pronounce Hosier?
In English /ˈhoʊ.zi.ɚ/ (Wiktionary).
In which country does Hosier have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 3.1 thousand people named Hosier, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hosier.
How common is the name Hosier?
In the United States, the national register counted 3,104 people named Hosier in 2010, about 1 in 107 thousand residents.
How common is Hosier compared with other names?
In South Sudan, Hosier is the 32nd most common surname of 3,406 surnames recorded there.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/hosier

The 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, “Hosier” — the 32nd most common surname in South Sudan. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.

See how Hosier parses inside a full name →