Smythe
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) ‘person who lives by or works at a forge’; from Middle English smithe ‘forge, smithy’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/smajð/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Smythe is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 19K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 35K
- CACanada≈1 in 41K
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)
- Sources
- 355 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 9.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈20,000 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Cape Verde, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
(i) ‘person who lives by or works at a forge’; from Middle English smithe ‘forge, smithy’. (ii) a different form of Smith.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Smythe 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 | — | ≈20,000 est. | ≈1 in 68K | — | Smythe | 4 |
| US United States | — | 4,379 | 1 in 76K | 4.4K | Smythe | 355 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 35K | 2.2K | Smythe | 167 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 19K | — | Smythe | 135 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 41K | — | Smythe | 124 |
| NZ New Zealand | — | ≈250 est. | ≈1 in 20K | — | Smythe | 57 |
| JM Jamaica | — | ≈97 est. | ≈1 in 29K | — | Smythe | 8 |
| CV Cape Verde | #904 | ≈63 est. | ≈1 in 9.2K | — | Smythe | 1 |
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). 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)
Smythe is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, lived by a forge, ME smithe (OE smi66e), or occupational Snow I. English: nickname denoting someone with very white hair or an exceptionally pale complexion, from OE Smuts see Smith 576 Soikin Snowball snaw snow. 2. Jewish (Ashkenazic): Anglicized and short¬ ened form of any of the ornamental cpds listed below. Dims.: Eng.: Snowling. Ger.: Schneele, Schnelli (Swiss).
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, lived by a forge, ME smithe (OE smidde), or occupational name for someone employed at a forge. 2. spelling var. of Smith. Vars.: Smithe. (Of i only): Smithies, Smithyes, Smythyes; Athersmith. Cogns. (of i): Ger.: Schmied(er). Low Ger.: Tersmeden.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, A surname originating as an occupation.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In enm, smithy
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)
- Thomas Smytheb. 1558GBEnglish diplomat
- Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangfordb. 1780GBAnglo-Irish diplomat (1780-1855)
- Lady Strangfordb. 1826GBnot in their usual nameBritish illustrator, writer and nurse (1826–1887)
- William Ralph Smytheb. 1893USAmerican physicist (1893-1988)
- Conn Smytheb. 1895CACanadian sports executive (1895–1980)
- Frank Smytheb. 1900GBBritish mountaineer, botanist, author and photographer (1900-1949)
- Pat Smytheb. 1928GBBritish equestrian (1928-1996)
- Douglas Smytheb. 1950American visual effects artist
- Cory Smytheb. 1977USAmerican musician
- Nekoda Smythe-Davisb. 1993GBEnglish judoka
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 20 sources across 11 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.4K | #7,591 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4.3K | #7,142 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.2K | #7,636 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 2.2K | #3,340 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- Where does the name Smythe come from?
- (i) ‘person who lives by or works at a forge’; from Middle English smithe ‘forge, smithy’. (ii) a different form of Smith. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Smythe?
- A machine transcription gives /smajð/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Smythe mean?
- Recorded meaning: (i) ‘person who lives by or works at a forge’; from Middle English smithe ‘forge, smithy’.
- In which country does Smythe have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 20 thousand people named Smythe in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled smythe.
- How common is the name Smythe?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,379 people named Smythe in 2010, about 1 in 76 thousand residents.
- How common is Smythe compared with other names?
- In Cape Verde, Smythe is the 904th most common surname of 2,258 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Smythe?
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/smytheThe 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, “Smythe” — the 904th most common surname in Cape Verde. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.