Unique Last Names: Rare Surnames From the US Census

A unique last name is one very few people share. The Census Bureau’s 2010 surname list counts every surname held by at least 100 people in the US: 162,253 of them. 118,969 of those, 73%, belong to fewer than 500 people each, and another 29,312,001 people had surnames too rare to be listed at all. This guide lists unique last names from the Census records: ones that are also words from nature, short ones, unique surnames from each of the Census groups, and the rarest of all.

What Makes a Last Name Unique?

Most surnames are rare. Only 314 surnames have 100,000 people or more, led by Smith, Johnson and Williams, while 69,896 have fewer than 200. With 294,979,229 people counted, a surname held by 300 of them belongs to about 1 in 980,000 Americans. The counts below are people in the 2010 Census.

Unique Last Names From Nature

These 42 surnames are also words for plants, animals, places in the landscape or the sky, and each was held by 1,000 people or fewer. Timber and Plover are the rarest, with 100 and 107.

Short Unique Last Names

These three- and four-letter surnames each had fewer than 200 people in 2010, picked from across the alphabet:

Unique Last Names by Background

The Census also recorded how the people with each surname described their race and Hispanic origin. Each list below has surnames with fewer than 300 people, at least 75% of them in that group, picked from across the alphabet.

Unique Hispanic Last Names

Unique Asian or Pacific Islander Last Names

Unique Black Last Names

Unique American Indian or Alaska Native Last Names

What Is the Rarest Last Name in America?

No single surname can be named, because the Census lists surnames only down to 100 people. 1,279 surnames were counted exactly 100 times in 2010, the smallest number the list shows. They include Aarseth, Abarra, Abbarno, Acott, Addyman and Aguzzi. Any surname with fewer people is grouped with the others under “all other names”, so if yours isn’t on the list at all, it is rarer than every one of these.

Which Last Names Are New Since 2000?

15,737 surnames appear on the 2010 list that were not on the 2000 list, which used the same 100-person line. These are the new surnames with the most people:

For Htoo, Meh, Dahal, Subedi, Khanal and Khadka, more than 90% of the people were recorded as Asian or Pacific Islander. Martindelcamp, the double surname Martin del Campo written as one word, was 98% Hispanic.

The Longest Last Names on the List

The longest surnames on the list are 15 letters, and some of them look cut off at that length, such as Vandenlangenber and Schwartzenberge. These are the 15-letter surnames with the most people:

How to Check Your Own Last Name

1. Type your surname in the search box on the surnames page. Every surname on the 2010 list has a page with its count, rank and change since 2000; the surname guide explains how to read it.
2. If it has fewer than a few hundred people, it is one of the rare ones described here. If it isn’t listed, fewer than 100 people had it.
3. For your first name, type it in the search box on the home page, and for both together, try the full name estimate.

What the List Can’t Tell You

• It dates from 2010. Surnames that grew or arrived since then aren’t reflected.
• It stops at 100 people. The truly rare surnames are counted only as a group.
• Spellings are separate. Each spelling of a family name is its own surname.
• It has no meanings or origins. The Census counts people; where a surname comes from needs other sources.