Oliver

At the 2020 census, 109,817 Americans bore the surname Oliver — 278th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 2,722.

By the numbers

People: 109,817
Rank: 278th
How common: 1 in 2,722
Per 100,000: 36.7

Where the name comes from

Origin a patronymic

from Old French Olivier, by folk etymology derived from the Latin name Olīvārius, but probably representing an Old High German form of Old Norse Óleifr (“ancestral + relic”) (modern Danish Olaf and Swedish Olof), or Proto-Germanic *ala- (“all”) + *wēraz (“true”) (modern Swedish allvar). Name of a paladin of Charlemagne in medieval French romance.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 61.8%
Black, not Hispanic 26.3%
Hispanic or Latino 5.7%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.9%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%

Notable people called Oliver

Jamie Oliver (born 1975)British chef and media personality
John Oliver (born 1977)British-American comedian and television host
Mary Oliver (1935–2019)American poet
King Oliver (1881–1938)American jazz cornet player and bandleader
Michael Oliver (born 1985)English football referee
Christian Oliver (1972–2024)German actor
Edna May Oliver (1883–1942)American actress
David Oliver (born 1982)American hurdler

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

Surnames like Oliver

Also a first name

Oliver has been given to 270,680 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 2024. 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.