Portman
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from OE portmann ‘townsman, portman’; first attested John Portman 1225 AssSo
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈpɔɹtmən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Portman is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- FIFinland1 in 40K(measured from records)
- USUnited States1 in 205K
- NLNetherlands1 in 303K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- Sources
- 9 (measured from records)
- 1 in 40K (inferred from the name graph)
1,621 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from OE portmann ‘townsman, portman’; first attested John Portman 1225 AssSo.
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Portman 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 | 1,621 | 1 in 205K | 1.7K | Portman | 5 |
| FI Finland | 141 | 1 in 40K | 141 | Portman | 9 |
| NL Netherlands | 57 | 1 in 303K | 57 | — | — |
| AR Argentina | 10 | 1 in 4.5M | 10 | — | — |
| CH Switzerland | 6 | 1 in 1.4M | 6 | — | 1 |
| CZ Czechia | 3 | 1 in 3.6M | 3 | — | — |
1,621 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 — Surname Frequency 2020; DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames); MVČR — living population register 2017. 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)
Portman is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A surname originating as an occupation.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, Different form of Port.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In German, Na talie, Nathalie. Engl. Form: Natalie ['naetali].
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
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)
- Edward Portman, 1st Viscount Portmanb. 1799GBBritish Liberal politician
- Henry Portman, 2nd Viscount Portmanb. 1829GBBritish politician (1829–1919)
- Eric Portmanb. 1901GBBritish actor (1901-1969)
- John Portmanb. 1924USAmerican architect and real estate developer (1924-2017)
- Richard Portmanb. 1934USAmerican sound engineer (1934-2017)
- Stephen Portmanb. 1935USAmerican pianist and conductor
- Rob Portmanb. 1955USAmerican lawyer and politician (born 1955)
- Rachel Portmanb. 1960GBBritish composer
- Natalie Portmanb. 1981ILIsraeli-American actress (born 1981)
- Daniel Portmanb. 1992GBScottish 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)
Attested in 16 sources across 7 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 1.7K | #16,688 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 1.6K | #17,406 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 1.5K | #17,671 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 141 | #9,809 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Sukunimitilasto (Finnish surnames register) | — | 75 | — |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 57 | #28,534 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 10 | — |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 6 | #89,778 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 3 | #164,280 |
| CZ Czechia | KdeJsme.cz — četnost jmen a příjmení (MVČR population register front-end) | — | 3 | #22,709 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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 Portman mean, and where does it come from?
- from OE portmann ‘townsman, portman’; first attested John Portman 1225 AssSo. Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Portman?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈpɔɹtmən/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Portman have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.6 thousand people named Portman, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled portman.
- Where is Portman most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Portman is densest in Finland — about 1 in 40 thousand people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Portman?
- In the United States, the national register counted 1,621 people named Portman in 2010, about 1 in 205 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Portman?
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/portmanThe 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, “Portman”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.