King

453,539 people in the United States were counted with the surname King in the 2020 census, making it the 36th most common in the country. That is about one person in 659.

By the numbers

People: 453,539
Rank: 36th
How common: 1 in 659
Per 100,000: 151.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a nickname

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 67.5%
Black, not Hispanic 22.3%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.5%
Hispanic or Latino 3.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 1.1%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.0%

Notable people called King

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)American Baptist minister and civil rights leader
Stephen King (born 1947)American novelist and writer
Larry King (1933–2021)American television and radio host
Billie Jean King (born 1943)American tennis player
Joey King (born 1999)American actress
Coretta Scott King (1927–2006)American author, activist, and civil rights leader; wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Carole King (born 1942)American singer-songwriter and musician
Candice King (born 1987)American actress and singer

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

Surnames like King

Also a first name

King has been given to 37,890 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2017. 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.