Thornton

At the 2020 census, 77,910 Americans bore the surname Thornton — 410th out of 156,621 surnames on file. That is about one person in 3,836.

By the numbers

People: 77,910
Rank: 410th
How common: 1 in 3,836
Per 100,000: 26.1

Where the name comes from

Origin Old English

From Old English þorn (“thorn”) + tūn (“settlement”).

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 65.4%
Black, not Hispanic 25.9%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.6%
Hispanic or Latino 3.0%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.5%

Notable people called Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton (born 1955)American actor, filmmaker, and musician
Big Mama Thornton (1926–1984)American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter
Tiffany Thornton (born 1986)American actress
Melanie Thornton (1967–2001)American singer
Melody Thornton (born 1984)American singer
Kathryn C. Thornton (born 1952)American scientist and NASA astronaut
Joe Thornton (born 1979)Canadian ice hockey centre
David Thornton (born 1953)American actor

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

Surnames like Thornton

Also a first name

Thornton has been given to 3,132 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1921. 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.