Sterling

25,411 people in the United States were counted with the surname Sterling in the 2020 census, making it the 1,356th most common in the country. That is about one person in 11,800.

By the numbers

People: 25,411
Rank: 1,356th
How common: 1 in 11,800
Per 100,000: 8.5

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 60.8%
Black, not Hispanic 28.2%
Hispanic or Latino 5.6%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.8%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.4%

Notable people called Sterling

Raheem Sterling (born 1994)English association football player
Bruce Sterling (born 1954)American author, speaker and futurist
Jan Sterling (1921–2004)American actress
Molly Sterling (born 1998)Irish singer
Ford Sterling (1883–1939)American comedian
Aljamain Sterling (born 1989)American mixed martial artist
Manuel Márquez Sterling (1872–1934)Cuban journalist, diplomat and politician
Mindy Sterling (born 1953)American actress

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

Surnames like Sterling

Also a first name

Sterling has been given to 41,197 American babies as a first name since 1880, 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.