Jackson

At the 2020 census, 686,937 Americans bore the surname Jackson — 20th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 435.

By the numbers

People: 686,937
Rank: 20th
How common: 1 in 435
Per 100,000: 229.8

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

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

Who bears the name

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

Black, not Hispanic 51.3%
White, not Hispanic 38.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.0%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Jackson

Michael Jackson (1958–2009)American singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)president of the United States from 1829 to 1837
Janet Jackson (born 1966)American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress
Peter Jackson (born 1961)New Zealand film director, screenwriter, producer and actor
Samuel L. Jackson (born 1948)American actor
Glenda Jackson (1936–2023)British actress and politician
Jesse Jackson (1941–2026)American Baptist minister, activist, civil rights leader, politician, and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Stonewall Jackson (1824–1863)general of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War

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

Surnames like Jackson

Also a first name

Jackson has been given to 297,998 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2013. 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.