Hughes
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Welsh Hywel; early cite: medieval Hughes forms as variants of Hywel
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/hjuːz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Hughes is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Ireland it is the 25th most common surname.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 644(inferred from the name graph)
- IEIreland≈1 in 764
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 874
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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #336 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 596 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 644 (inferred from the name graph)
≈930,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Welsh Hywel; early cite: medieval Hughes forms as variants of Hywel.
Sources 1
- Welsh Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Hughes 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈930,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.5K | — | Hughes | 35 |
| US United States | #76 | 236,271 | 1 in 1.4K | 236K | Hughes | 596 |
| GB United Kingdom | #28 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 644 | listed | Hughes | 368 |
| AU Australia | #58 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 937 | — | Hughes | 263 |
| CA Canada | #75 | ≈27,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 1 | Hughes | 267 |
| IE Ireland | #25 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 764 | — | Hughes | 157 |
| NZ New Zealand | #48 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 874 | — | Hughes | 166 |
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 welsh-surnames-morgan-1985 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)
Hughes 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.
patronymic from the Middle English and Anglo-Norman French personal name Hugh.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
variant Anglicization of Gaelic Mac Aodha (see McCoy).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A Welsh and English surname originating as a patronymic derived from the given name Hugh.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, patronymic: ‘son of Hugh’
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, son of Hugh
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
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)
- Thomas Hughesb. 1822GBEnglish lawyer, judge, politician and author (1822–1896)
- Billy Hughesb. 1862AUAustralian politician (1862–1952), 7th Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923
- Langston Hughesb. 1902USAmerican writer and social activist (1901–1967)
- Howard Hughesb. 1905USAmerican aviator, engineer, industrialist, and film producer (1905–1976)
- Ted Hughesb. 1930GBEnglish poet and children's writer (1930–1998)
- John Hughesb. 1950USAmerican filmmaker (1950–2009)
- Mark Hughesb. 1963GBWelsh football manager
- Chris Hughesb. 1983USAmerican entrepreneur
- Sarah Hughesb. 1985USAmerican figure skater
- Alex Warrenb. 2000USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, songwriter, YouTuber, and influencer
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 56 sources across 33 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 236K | #90 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 229K | #83 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 227K | #96 |
| GB United Kingdom | Welsh Surnames (Morgan & Morgan, 1985) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 9
- 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
- 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)
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
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 Hughes mean, and where does it come from?
- from Welsh Hywel; early cite: medieval Hughes forms as variants of Hywel. Recorded by Welsh Surnames.
- In which country does Hughes have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 933 thousand people named Hughes in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled hughes.
- How do you pronounce Hughes?
- A machine transcription gives /hjuːz/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Hughes?
- In the United States, the national register counted 236,271 people named Hughes in 2010, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Hughes compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Hughes is the 25th most common surname of 73,729 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Hughes?
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/hughesThe 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, “Hughes” — the 25th most common surname in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.