Parson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OFr persone, ME persone/persoun ‘priest, parson’; first attested William Persun 1197 P (Nf)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 15 countries · latest register: Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines, 2025
/ˈpɑɹsən/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Parson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- VCSt. Vincent & Grenadines1 in 13K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 25K
- SGSingapore≈1 in 26Kfew records
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)
- Record sources
- 389 (measured from records)
- 1 in 13K (inferred from the name graph)
13,209 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
St. Vincent & Grenadines
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)from OFr persone, ME persone/persoun ‘priest, parson’; first attested William Persun 1197 P (Nf)
Cited for this meaning 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
Where the surname Parson is found
(measured from records)Parson 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 | — | 13,209 | 1 in 25K | 13K | Parson | 389 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,500 est. | ≈1 in 28K | 556 | Parson | 113 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈1,400 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Parson | 74 |
| IN India | — | ≈740 est. | ≈1 in 2M | — | Parson | 19 |
| MY Malaysia | — | ≈600 est. | ≈1 in 59K | — | Parson | 11 |
| KP North Korea | #645 | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 46K | — | Parson | 5 |
| SG Singapore | — | ≈230 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Parson | 5 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | 8 | 1 in 13K | 8 | — | — |
13,209 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); Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025). 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)Parson 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, An Anglican cleric having full legal control of a parish under ecclesiastical law.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In fro, alternative form of persone (in the sense "parson")
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)- Mike Parsonb. 1955US57th governor of Missouri
- Walther Parsonb. 1966ATAustrian medical examiner, molecular biologist and university teacher
- Chris ParsonUSAmerican voice actor
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)28 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 15 countries.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Parson mean, and where does it come from?
- from OFr persone, ME persone/persoun ‘priest, parson’; first attested William Persun 1197 P (Nf) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Parson?
- In English /ˈpɑɹsən/ (Wiktionary).
- Which countries have the most people with the surname Parson?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 13 thousand people named Parson, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled parson. After it come United Kingdom, Canada, India and Malaysia; the country table on this page ranks them.
- Where is Parson most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Parson is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 13 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Parson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 13,209 people named Parson in 2010, about 1 in 25 thousand residents.
- How common is Parson compared with other names?
- In North Korea, Parson is the 645th most common surname of 2,439 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Parson?
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/parsonThe 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, “Parson” — the 645th most common surname in North Korea. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.