Mills

Mills is the 187th most common surname in the United States, shared by 145,448 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 2,055.

By the numbers

People: 145,448
Rank: 187th
How common: 1 in 2,055
Per 100,000: 48.7

Where the name comes from

From mills, in reference to mill owners and mill workers.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 74.6%
Black, not Hispanic 16.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.2%
Hispanic or Latino 3.3%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Mills

John Evans Atta Mills (1944–2012)sixth President of the Republic of Ghana
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)American sociologist
John Mills (1908–2005)British actor
Hayley Mills (born 1946)British actress
Patty Mills (born 1988)Australian basketball player
Mike Mills (born 1958)American musician; multi-instrumentalist for American alternative rock band R.E.M.
Billy Mills (born 1938)American Olympic athlete
Danny Mills (born 1977)English footballer

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

Surnames like Mills

Also a first name

Mills has been given to 1,045 American babies as a first name since 1882, peaking in 2025. 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.