Worthen
surname · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Worthen is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. Recorded meaning: from Worthen (Shropshire), Worthing (Norfolk), or residence at an enclosure/homestead (OE worþign); first attested Richard de Worthin 1274 RH (Salop).
- USUnited States1 in 79K(measured from records)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 130K
- TCTurks & Caicos Islands≈1 in 6.3K
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
- 314 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 6.3K (inferred from the name graph)
4,197 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
Turks & Caicos Islands, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Worthen (Shropshire), Worthing (Norfolk), or residence at an enclosure/homestead (OE worþign); first attested Richard de Worthin 1274 RH (Salop)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Worthen 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 | — | 4,197 | 1 in 79K | 4.2K | Worthen | 314 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈510 est. | ≈1 in 130K | 61 | Worthen | 40 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 137K | — | Worthen | 5 |
| CA Canada | — | ≈340 est. | ≈1 in 110K | — | Worthen | 45 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈170 est. | ≈1 in 150K | — | Worthen | 24 |
| TC Turks & Caicos Islands | #180 | ≈9 est. | ≈1 in 6.3K | — | Worthen | 1 |
4,197 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)
Worthen is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, To give worth to; value; make or become worth or worthy; appraise.
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)
- Amos Henry Worthenb. 1813USAmerican geologist and palaeontologist
- Charles K. Worthenb. 1850USAmerican naturalist and illustrator (1850-1909)
- William B. Worthenb. 1955USAmerican theatrologist
- Kevin J Worthenb. 1956USPresident of Brigham Young University
- Sam Worthenb. 1958USAmerican basketball player-coach
- Naz Worthenb. 1966USAmerican football player
- Shawn Worthenb. 1975football player (born 1975)
- Shawn Worthenb. 1978USAmerican football player
- Joey Worthenb. 1979USAmerican soccer player (born 1979)
- Mark WorthenUSresearcher
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 10 sources across 5 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 4.2K | #7,888 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4.1K | #7,850 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 4K | #7,733 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 61 | #44,978 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 2
- 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 Worthen mean, and where does it come from?
- from Worthen (Shropshire), Worthing (Norfolk), or residence at an enclosure/homestead (OE worþign); first attested Richard de Worthin 1274 RH (Salop) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- In which country does Worthen have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 4.2 thousand people named Worthen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled worthen.
- How common is the name Worthen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 4,197 people named Worthen in 2010, about 1 in 79 thousand residents.
- How common is Worthen compared with other names?
- In Turks & Caicos Islands, Worthen is the 180th most common surname of 3,662 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Worthen?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/worthenThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Worthen” — the 180th most common surname in Turks & Caicos Islands. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.