Sturgeon
loc · Latin script
Meaning: Possibly from the ‘royal’ fish; recorded mostly in Dumfries and Galloway from 1544
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Sturgeon is a name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- CACanada≈1 in 28K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 37K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 33K
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)
- Sources
- 378 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 28K (inferred from the name graph)
9,007 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Canada, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Possibly from the ‘royal’ fish; recorded mostly in Dumfries and Galloway from 1544.
Sources 1
- Scottish Surnames
Attested across 3 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Sturgeon 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 | 9,007 | 1 in 37K | 9K | Sturgeon | 378 |
| GB United Kingdom | ≈2,000 est. | ≈1 in 33K | 1.7K | Sturgeon | 155 |
| CA Canada | ≈1,300 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Sturgeon | 125 |
| RU Russia | ≈150 est. | ≈1 in 941K | — | Sturgeon | 9 |
| AR Argentina | 36 | 1 in 1.3M | 36 | — | — |
9,007 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); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national). 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)
Sturgeon 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 nickname from the fish, from OFr esturgeon; first attested William Sturjon 1281 Ipm (Cu)
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
In English, fishmonger, or possibly a nickname, from ME sturgeon (an aphetic form of OF estourgeon, of Gmc origin, which replaced the native cogn. styrga). Cogn.: Du.: Steur.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, Any marine or freshwater fish of the family Acipenseridae that are prized for their roe and are endemic to temperate seas and rivers of the northern hemisphere, especially central Eurasia.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, fishmonger
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In fro, alternative spelling of estorjoun
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)
- William Sturgeonb. 1783GBBritish inventor
- Daniel Sturgeonb. 1789USAmerican politician (1789-1878)
- Rollin S. Sturgeonb. 1877USAmerican film director and screenwriter (1877-1961)
- Theodore Sturgeonb. 1918USAmerican speculative fiction writer (1918–1985)
- Joan Sturgeonb. 1952GBScottish politician who served as the Provost of North Ayrshire Council from 2012 to 2016
- Peter Sturgeonb. 1954CACanadian ice hockey player
- Laura Sturgeonb. 1965USAmerican politician from Delaware
- Nicola Sturgeonb. 1970GBFirst Minister of Scotland from 2014 to 2023
- Jim Sturgeonb. 2000GBScottish actor
- Donald SturgeonGBBritish sinologist
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 13 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 9K | #3,950 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 8.7K | #3,741 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 8.7K | #3,969 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 1.7K | #4,172 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 36 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| GB United Kingdom | Scottish Surnames (Ross, 1994) | — | — | — |
| 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
- What does the name Sturgeon mean, and where does it come from?
- Possibly from the ‘royal’ fish; recorded mostly in Dumfries and Galloway from 1544. Recorded by Scottish Surnames.
- In which country does Sturgeon have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 9.0 thousand people named Sturgeon, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled sturgeon.
- How common is the name Sturgeon?
- In the United States, the national register counted 9,007 people named Sturgeon in 2010, about 1 in 37 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Sturgeon?
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/sturgeonThe 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, “Sturgeon”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.