Wright

Wright is the 37th most common surname in the United States, shared by 443,210 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 674.

By the numbers

People: 443,210
Rank: 37th
How common: 1 in 674
Per 100,000: 148.3

Where the name comes from

Origin an occupational name

English and Scottish occupational surname, from the archaic noun wright (“builder, maker”). Found as the second element of compounds such as Wainwright, Cartwright, etc.

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

Who bears the name

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

White, not Hispanic 63.1%
Black, not Hispanic 27.5%
Two or more races, not Hispanic 4.8%
Hispanic or Latino 3.4%
Asian or Pacific Islander, not Hispanic 0.7%
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic 0.7%

Notable people called Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959)American architect
Robin Wright (born 1966)American actress
Bonnie Wright (born 1991)British actress and filmmaker
Teresa Wright (1918–2005)American actress
Richard Wright (1943–2008)English keyboardist, co-founder of Pink Floyd
Richard Wright (1908–1960)American novelist and poet
Jeffrey Wright (born 1965)American actor
Letitia Wright (born 1993)Guyanese actress

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

Also a first name

Wright has been given to 1,639 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1915. 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.