Owen

surname · Latin script

Meaning: From the Welsh male personal name Owain, probably from Latin Eugenius

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/oʊɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Owen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.5K
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 3K

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)

61,630 people, 2010

2 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
532 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 1.8K (inferred from the name graph)

United Kingdom, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

OwenLatin(measured from records)
오언Hangul(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)

From the Welsh male personal name Owain, probably from Latin Eugenius.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Owen 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 Owen is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#43861,6301 in 5.4K176KOwen532
GB United Kingdom#116≈37,000 est.≈1 in 1.8K56Owen327
NG Nigeria—≈10,000 est.≈1 in 21K—Owen69
AU Australia#271≈8,400 est.≈1 in 3K154Owen227
CA Canada#430≈7,600 est.≈1 in 4.9K107Owen229
ZM Zambia—≈4,000 est.≈1 in 4.3K—Owen28
NZ New Zealand#206≈1,900 est.≈1 in 2.5K41Owen126

61,630 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; Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Owen is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, Brazil

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian

    Also written Oweñ, Öwen, Owén

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group
  • Russian surname25 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Russia, Poland, United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Russian, Polish, Ukrainian

    Also written Овен, Оуэн, Oven, Eoin, Оуен

  • Indonesian surname8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Malaysia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Owen', 'Owen, Öwéñ, Owén, Ôwëñ

  • Greek surname3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom

    Also written Οουεν, Öwen

  • English surname72 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada

    Languages: English, Arabic, Chinese

    Also written Owens, โอเว่น, โอเวน, โอเว่นส์, โอเว็น

81 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Owen 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, Anglicised form of Eoghan; means 'well born'.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • In English, from Owen, a Welsh given name; first attested Uwen Wenta cyning 926 ASC D

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, from Welsh Owain; earliest cited here 1712 Owenus ap William Ellis.

    as a nameWelsh Surnames

  • Very common Welsh name, of uncertain origin. It may have derived in the sub- Roman period from the Latin name Eugenius (see Eugene). Alternatively, it may represent an Old Celtic name meaning ‘born of Esos’. Esos or Aesos was a god with a cult in Gaul. It is also used as an Anglicized form of Scottish and Irish Gaelic E6ghan, which is probably ultimately a cognate of the Welsh name.

    as a nameA concise dictionary of first names

  • A name used in Ireland to anglicise Eoghan, to which it equates phonetically. In Wales it represents Euguein. Both names mean ‘well born’.

    as a nameIrish first 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)

1700180019002000Robert Owen, b. 1771Richard Owen, b. 1804Reginald Owen, b. 1887Wilfred Owen, b. 1893Alison Owen, b. 1961Rena Owen, b. 1962Clive Owen, b. 1964Lloyd Owen, b. 1966Michael Owen, b. 1976Chris Owen, b. 1980

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 Mr Owen,
InformalHi Owen,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 110 sources across 57 countries.

Official registers attesting Owen
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201062K#543
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200060K#496
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202059K#561

Reference works 7

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 Owen mean, and where does it come from?
From the Welsh male personal name Owain, probably from Latin Eugenius. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Owen have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 62 thousand people named Owen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled owen.
How common is the name Owen?
In the United States, the national register counted 61,630 people named Owen in 2010, about 1 in 5.4 thousand residents.
How common is Owen compared with other names?
In the United States, Owen is the 438th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Owen?
A machine transcription gives /oʊɪn/ (IPA) for English.

What do you want to know about Owen?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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

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, “Owen” — the 438th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Owen parses inside a full name →