Williams

1,561,395 people in the United States were counted with the surname Williams in the 2020 census, making it the 3rd most common in the country. That is about one person in 191.

By the numbers

People: 1,561,395
Rank: 3rd
How common: 1 in 191
Per 100,000: 522.4

Where the name comes from

Variant of William with genitival or post-medieval excrescent.

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

Who bears the name

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

Black, not Hispanic 46.2%
White, not Hispanic 43.8%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 5.1%
Hispanic or Latino 3.5%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.8%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.6%

Notable people called Williams

Robin Williams (1951–2014)American actor and comedian
Serena Williams (born 1981)American tennis player
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)American playwright
Robbie Williams (born 1974)British singer
Venus Williams (born 1980)American tennis player
Jody Williams (born 1950)American teacher and aid worker
John Williams (born 1932)American composer and conductor
Betty Williams (1943–2020)Northern Irish peace activist

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

Surnames like Williams

Also a first name

Williams has been given to 6,150 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1950. 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.