Allen

At the 2020 census, 465,583 Americans bore the surname Allen — 35th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 642.

By the numbers

People: 465,583
Rank: 35th
How common: 1 in 642
Per 100,000: 155.8

Where the name comes from

Origin a given name

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Who bears the name

How people with the surname Allen described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 64.8%
Black, not Hispanic 25.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.7%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Allen

Woody Allen (born 1935)American filmmaker, actor and comedian
Paul Allen (1953–2018)American businessman and philanthropist, co-founder of Microsoft
Lily Allen (born 1985)British singer and actress
Tim Allen (born 1953)American actor and comedian
Joan Allen (born 1956)American actress
James A. Van Allen (1914–2006)American astrophysicist
Ray Allen (born 1975)American basketball player
Joe Allen (born 1990)Welsh association football player

People named Allen with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Surnames like Allen

Also a first name

Allen has been given to 273,662 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1951. See it as a given name.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.