Watkins
surname · Latin script
Meaning: A surname transferred from the given name
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈwɑtkɪnz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Watkins is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 2.1K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.2K
- USUnited States1 in 2.6K
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)
- #680 (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 568 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.7K (inferred from the name graph)
127,083 people, 2010
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
North Korea, 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)
A surname transferred from the given name.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Watkins 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 | #192 | 127,083 | 1 in 2.6K | 127K | Watkins | 568 |
| GB United Kingdom | #179 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.2K | 32K | Watkins | 287 |
| KP North Korea | #221 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.7K | — | Watkins | 2 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 9.5K | — | Watkins | 13 |
| IT Italy | #442 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 5.8K | — | Watkins | 31 |
| NZ New Zealand | #180 | ≈2,400 est. | ≈1 in 2.1K | — | Watkins | 108 |
| IE Ireland | #254 | ≈1,900 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | — | Watkins | 67 |
127,083 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). 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)
Watkins is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, ‘son of Watkin’.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In Irish, This English name (Watkin is a diminutive of Walter) came to Ireland mainly in the seventeenth century, but it occurs occasionally a century earlier, e.g. in a Fiant of 1578 where a list of `pardons' to soldiers in O'Flaherty's country (west Connacht) is given
as a nameThe Surnames of Ireland
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)
- Maurine Dallas Watkinsb. 1896USAmerican journalist (1896–1969)
- James D. Watkinsb. 1927USChief of U.S. Naval operations (1982–86), 6th U.S. Secretary of Energy (1989–93)
- bell hooksb. 1952USnot in their usual nameAmerican author and activist (1952–2021)
- Jason Watkinsb. 1966GBBritish actor
- Tuc Watkinsb. 1966USAmerican actor
- Tionne Watkinsb. 1970USAmerican singer
- James Watkinsb. 1973GBBritish writer and film director
- Ian Watkinsb. 1977GBWelsh musician and sex offender (1977–2025)
- Ollie Watkinsb. 1995GBEnglish footballer (born 1995)
- IShowSpeedb. 2005USnot in their usual nameAmerican influencer, musician and online streamer (born 2005)
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 42 sources across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 127K | #240 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 122K | #222 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 122K | #251 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 32K | #199 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- 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)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 Watkins mean, and where does it come from?
- A surname transferred from the given name. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Watkins?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈwɑtkɪnz/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Watkins have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 127 thousand people named Watkins, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled watkins.
- How common is the name Watkins?
- In the United States, the national register counted 127,083 people named Watkins in 2010, about 1 in 2.6 thousand residents.
- How common is Watkins compared with other names?
- In the United States, Watkins is the 192nd most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Watkins?
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/watkinsThe 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, “Watkins” — the 192nd most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.