Scott

Scott is the 40th most common surname in the United States, shared by 421,499 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 709.

By the numbers

People: 421,499
Rank: 40th
How common: 1 in 709
Per 100,000: 141.0

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 Scott described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:

White, not Hispanic 57.7%
Black, not Hispanic 32.1%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.9%
Hispanic or Latino 3.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 1.1%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Scott

Walter Scott (1771–1832)Scottish novelist, poet and playwright
Ridley Scott (born 1937)English filmmaker
Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912)Royal Navy officer and explorer
George C. Scott (1927–1999)American actor, film director and producer
Naomi Scott (born 1993)British actress
Coretta Scott King (1927–2006)American author, activist, and civil rights leader; wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tony Scott (1944–2012)British film director and producer
Bon Scott (1946–1980)Australian singer

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

Surnames like Scott

Also a first name

Scott has been given to 777,605 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1971. 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.