Ross
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) ‘person from Ross or Roos’ in England or Scotland, probably ‘upland, moorland’; (ii) ‘person from Rots’, Normandy, perhaps ‘woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘breeder or keeper of horses’, or from a medie
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ɹɔs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Ross is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 55th most common surname.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 868(inferred from the name graph)
- CACanada≈1 in 1.1K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 1.1K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Ross itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #237 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 608 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 868 (inferred from the name graph)
229,368 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Luke in GB United Kingdom, AU Australia, NG Nigeria, Luca in IT Italy, CH Switzerland, Roth in DE Germany and Luque in EC Ecuador.
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)
(i) ‘person from Ross or Roos’ in England or Scotland, probably ‘upland, moorland’; (ii) ‘person from Rots’, Normandy, perhaps ‘woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘breeder or keeper of horses’, or from a medieval German nickname comparing someone to a horse; (iv) from the medieval male personal name Roce, Norman form of Germanic Rozzo; (v) a different form of Rose.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Ross 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 | #55 | 229,368 | 1 in 1.4K | 267K | Ross | 608 |
| NG Nigeria | — | ≈74,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.9K | — | Luke | 75 |
| DE Germany | #30 | ≈59,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | listed | Roth | 235 |
| GB United Kingdom | #67 | ≈57,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 2.8K | Luke | 360 |
| IT Italy | #69 | ≈55,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 5 | Luca | 305 |
| CA Canada | #34 | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 139 | Ross | 295 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 30,159as Lucas | 1 in 561 | 30K | Luque | 36 |
| AU Australia | #64 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.1K | 353 | Luke | 348 |
| CH Switzerland | #20 | 11,430as Roth | 1 in 735 | 11K | Luca | 139 |
| NZ New Zealand | #49 | ≈5,700 est. | ≈1 in 868 | 75 | Ross | 165 |
229,368 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; ONS — Baby names England and Wales (2024); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; INEC — civil registry names; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames). 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)
Ross 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, Territorial name from Gaelic rois, ‘promontory’. Used for Ross in Ayrshire by a Norman family c.1189; northern clan seat at Balnagown, with Alexander and William Ross recorded from 1486.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In Irish, ‘Promontory’; formerly common in South Ulster, used by Ross MacMahon.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, Scottish surname used as a given name; from Gaelic ros 'promontory'
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, Clan/territorial surname from Ross; the surname had little currency until surnames became general. Earldom/territory held 1226–1476.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In English, from OG Rozzo, a hypocoristic of compounds in Hrod-; first attested Rozo 1086 DB (W)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
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)
- James Clark Rossb. 1800GBBritish explorer and naval officer (1800–1862)
- Harriet Tubmanb. 1821USnot in their usual nameAfrican-American abolitionist (1822–1913)
- Ronald Rossb. 1857GBBritish doctor, Nobel laureate, writer, and artist (1857–1932)
- Elisabeth Kübler-Rossb. 1926USSwiss-American psychiatrist and pioneer in near-death studies (1926-2004)
- Katharine Rossb. 1940USAmerican actress
- Diana Rossb. 1944USAmerican singer and actress (1944-2026)
- Matt Rossb. 1970USAmerican actor
- Lindsey Rossb. 1981USAmerican fine-art photographer
- Ashlee Simpsonb. 1984USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer and actress
- Evan Rossb. 1988USAmerican 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 93 sources across 45 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 229K | #98 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 225K | #99 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 220K | #89 |
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 213 | #5,932 |
Reference works 8
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
- 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 Ross mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) ‘person from Ross or Roos’ in England or Scotland, probably ‘upland, moorland’; (ii) ‘person from Rots’, Normandy, perhaps ‘woodland clearing’; (iii) ‘breeder or keeper of horses’, or from a medie… Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Ross?
- A machine transcription gives /ɹɔs/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Ross have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 229 thousand people named Ross, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ross.
- How common is the name Ross?
- In the United States, the national register counted 229,368 people named Ross in 2010, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Ross compared with other names?
- In the United States, Ross is the 55th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Ross?
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/rossThe 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, “Ross” — the 55th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.