Robinson
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Robin + son; first attested John, Richard Robynson 1324 Wak (Y), 1332 SRLa
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹabʲɪnsən/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Robinson is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 4th most common surname.
- JMJamaica≈1 in 314(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 441
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 559
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)
- #137 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 626 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 314 (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,000,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Jamaica, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(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 Robin + son; first attested John, Richard Robynson 1324 Wak (Y), 1332 SRLa
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Robinson 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 | — | ≈2,000,000 est. | ≈1 in 698 | — | Robinson | 41 |
| US United States | #25 | 529,821 | 1 in 628 | 530K | Robinson | 626 |
| GB United Kingdom | #13 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 441 | — | Robinson | 362 |
| EG Egypt | #585 | ≈63,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Robinson | 27 |
| CA Canada | #19 | ≈56,000 est. | ≈1 in 673 | 1 | Robinson | 306 |
| AU Australia | #20 | ≈43,000 est. | ≈1 in 586 | — | Robinson | 296 |
| JM Jamaica | #4 | ≈8,900 est. | ≈1 in 314 | — | Robinson | 48 |
| NZ New Zealand | #18 | ≈8,800 est. | ≈1 in 559 | — | Robinson | 179 |
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; 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)
Robinson 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, A surname originating as a patronymic.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, son of Robin (i)
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, Son of Robin
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, college, Cambridge Univ.; pers. name
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
Common in the 18th and 19th centuries.
as a nameThe Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and 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)
- Edward G. Robinsonb. 1893USRomanian-American actor (1893-1973)
- Joan Robinsonb. 1903GBEnglish economist (1903–1983)
- Jackie Robinsonb. 1919USAmerican baseball player (1919–1972)
- Sugar Ray Robinsonb. 1921USAmerican boxer (1921–1989)
- Ray Charlesb. 1930USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer, pianist and songwriter (1930–2004)
- Mary Robinsonb. 1944IEformer President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
- Kim Stanley Robinsonb. 1952USAmerican science fiction writer (born 1952)
- Michelle Obamab. 1964USnot in their usual namelawyer and former First Lady of the United States (2009-2017)
- Bambie Thugb. 1993IEnot in their usual nameIrish singer, songwriter, composer and musician (born 1993)
- Nick Robinsonb. 1995USAmerican 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 106 sources across 54 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 530K | #30 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 510K | #31 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 503K | #27 |
Reference works 8
- 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 Robinson mean, and where does it come from?
- from Robin + son; first attested John, Richard Robynson 1324 Wak (Y), 1332 SRLa Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- In which country does Robinson have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.0 million people named Robinson in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled robinson.
- How common is the name Robinson?
- In the United States, the national register counted 529,821 people named Robinson in 2010, about 1 in 628 residents.
- How common is Robinson compared with other names?
- In Jamaica, Robinson is the 4th most common surname of 50,451 surnames recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Robinson?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹabʲɪnsən/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Robinson?
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/robinsonThe 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, “Robinson” — the 4th most common surname in Jamaica. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.