Johnson
At the 2020 census, 1,858,234 Americans bore the surname Johnson — 2nd out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 161.
By the numbers
- People
- 1,858,234
- Rank
- 2nd
- How common
- 1 in 161
- Per 100,000
- 621.7
Where the name comes from
Origin a given name
A patronymic surname from literally “son of John”.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Johnson described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Johnson
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973)president of the United States from 1963 to 1969
- Boris Johnson (born 1964)Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022
- Andrew Johnson (1808–1875)President of the United States from 1865 to 1869
- Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)English writer and lexicographer
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (born 1938)24th president of Liberia
- Dwayne Johnson (born 1972)American actor and professional wrestler
- Jimmie Johnson (born 1975)American racing driver
- Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976)Swedish writer
People named Johnson with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Johnson
Also a first name
Johnson has been given to 7,043 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2000. 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.