Genealogy & Demographics Alabama 2010 Census Top 20 Surnames

Most Common Last Names in Alabama

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Alabama

Top 20 Most Common Surnames - 2010 Census

Top 3 — Alabama

#2 english
Williams
Patronymic
38,200 people
1 in every 125 Alabama residents

Son of William — Norman 'Willahelm', will plus helm. Williams nearly ties Smith in Alabama because freedmen in Dallas, Wilcox, and Perry counties — where enslaved people had outnumbered white settlers for decades — adopted it en masse after emancipation in 1865.

#1 english
Smith
Occupational
39,600 people
1 in every 121 Alabama residents

From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Alabama land records from 1808 show Smith among the first documented surnames in the territory — it arrived with Scots-Irish settlers from the Carolinas and spread further after 1865 when Black Belt freedmen adopted it as a new legal name.

#3 english
Johnson
Patronymic
31,000 people
1 in every 154 Alabama residents

Son of John, from Hebrew 'Yohanan' (God is gracious). Johnson was among the most common choices for Black Belt freedmen after 1865 — ethnically neutral, widely recognized, and already present in both white and Black communities across the state.

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Name origins - top 20 surnames

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Heritage

Scots-Irish Settlers, Freed Slaves, and a French Port

Alabama's population exploded from 9,000 to 300,000 between 1810 and 1830 as Scots-Irish families followed Jackson's military road into the Tennessee Valley. When emancipation came in 1865, freedmen across Dallas, Hale, and Greene counties chose legal surnames for the first time — pushing Williams and Johnson far above their national rankings. German settlers in Mobile Bay's Baldwin County added a third stream, leaving names like Enfinger nearly exclusive to coastal Alabama.

Did you know? Enfinger — brought to Baldwin and Mobile counties by German Baptist settlers from Baden-Württemberg between 1845 and 1870 — exists in statistically significant numbers in only two Alabama counties, making it the most geographically concentrated surname in the American South.

Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Alabama

Showing all 20 surnames

#1
Smith english
39,600
1 in 121
From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Alabama land records from 1808 show Smith among the first documented surnames in the territory — it arrived with Scots-Irish settlers from the Carolinas and spread further after 1865 when Black Belt freedmen adopted it as a new legal name.
#2
Williams english
38,200
1 in 125
Son of William — Norman 'Willahelm', will plus helm. Williams nearly ties Smith in Alabama because freedmen in Dallas, Wilcox, and Perry counties — where enslaved people had outnumbered white settlers for decades — adopted it en masse after emancipation in 1865.
#3
Johnson english
31,000
1 in 154
Son of John, from Hebrew 'Yohanan' (God is gracious). Johnson was among the most common choices for Black Belt freedmen after 1865 — ethnically neutral, widely recognized, and already present in both white and Black communities across the state.
#4
Brown english
26,800
1 in 178
From Old English 'brún', brown hair or complexion. Brown concentrations peak in Greene, Sumter, and Hale counties — the antebellum plantation heartland — where it spread through Carolinas-origin settler families and post-1865 adoption by freedmen.
#5
Jones english
25,400
1 in 188
The defining Welsh surname — son of John via 'Ioan'. Welsh-origin families who settled the hill country east of Birmingham (Walker, Blount, St. Clair counties) in the 1810s–1840s made Jones the most characteristically Appalachian surname in Alabama's top 10.
#6
Davis english
22,600
1 in 212
Son of David, from Hebrew 'Dāwīḏ' (beloved). Davis already ranked among Alabama's most common surnames before the Civil War; Jefferson Davis's presidency of the Confederacy — with Montgomery as its first capital — gave the name unmistakable symbolic weight that persisted through Reconstruction.
#7
Wilson english
18,900
1 in 253
Son of Will, a contraction of William. Wilson appears in Madison County deed books from 1812, carried by Scots-Irish families who followed the Tennessee River corridor into Limestone, Lawrence, and Colbert counties via the Huntsville land lottery of 1809.
#8
Moore english
18,400
1 in 260
From Old English 'mōr', someone near open uncultivated moorland. Moore concentrates in Lauderdale and Morgan counties — carried by Scots-Irish families from the Cumberland Plateau — and occasionally by Irish families anglicizing 'Ó Mórdha' (great chief) who came through the Tennessee Valley in the 1810s.
#9
Taylor english
17,800
1 in 268
From Old French 'tailleur', one who cuts cloth. Taylor families appear in Alabama's earliest land grants in the Tombigbee River valley (Sumter and Choctaw counties) before statehood in 1819, and spread further across the Black Belt through post-emancipation adoption.
#10
Anderson scottish
17,100
1 in 279
Son of Anders (Andrew), from Greek 'Andreas' (manly). Anderson followed the Scots-Irish route from Scotland to Ulster to the Appalachian corridor, settling Lauderdale, Colbert, and Franklin counties along the Tennessee Valley in the 1810s–1830s.
#11
Thomas english
16,600
1 in 288
From Aramaic 'Tʼōmā', meaning twin. Welsh-origin families from the Carolinas brought Thomas into Perry, Hale, and Marion counties — where they founded the earliest Baptist congregations — and freedmen in the same Black Belt counties adopted it widely after 1865.
#12
Jackson english
16,200
1 in 295
Son of Jack, a medieval diminutive of John. Andrew Jackson's defeat of the Creek Nation at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tallapoosa County, 1814) opened Alabama to settlement — many families who followed his military road carried or adopted the name, and Jackson County in northeast Alabama commemorates the same event.
#13
White english
15,700
1 in 304
From Old English 'hwīt', white hair. White concentrations peak in Bibb and Shelby counties — the coalfield region south of Birmingham — where Virginia-origin settler families arrived in the 1820s before coal and iron transformed the area after the Civil War.
#14
Harris english
15,100
1 in 317
Son of Harry, a medieval form of Henry (Germanic 'Heimirich', home ruler). Harris appears in Alabama's first General Assembly records in 1819, carried by early settlers of the Cahaba River valley in Bibb and Dallas counties — the fertile center of Alabama's first cotton economy.
#15
Martin french
14,600
1 in 327
From Latin 'Martinus', of Mars. Martin in Alabama has two roots: French Huguenot families from South Carolina settled Mobile Bay in the early 1800s, and Irish Catholic families in Mobile — which retained its French (1702) and Spanish (1780–1813) Catholic traditions — concentrated the name in Mobile County above all others.
#16
Thompson english
13,800
1 in 346
Son of Thom, with the 'p' inserted as a 15th-century spelling convention. Thompson concentrations peak in the Wiregrass (Dale, Coffee, Geneva counties), settled by English families from Georgia and South Carolina after the Creek removal of the 1820s — nearly absent from Mobile County, where coastal settlement followed entirely different migration routes.
#17
Young english
13,300
1 in 359
From Old English 'geong', a nickname distinguishing a son from his father. Scots-Irish families from East Tennessee brought Young to Sand Mountain (DeKalb and Marshall counties) in the 1820s–1840s after the Cherokee removal opened north Alabama's hill country, and the name remains disproportionately concentrated there today.
#18
Allen english
12,900
1 in 371
Possibly from Celtic 'Ailín' (little rock), or a habitational name from Brittany carried to England at the Norman Conquest. Allen families entered Alabama through the Coosa River valley (Talladega and Coosa counties) in the 1820s, following the corridor cleared by the Creek War of 1813–14.
#19
King english
12,500
1 in 382
From Old English 'cyning' (king), originally a nickname for someone in a royal household. After 1865, King became a deliberate choice among Black Belt freedmen in Hale, Greene, and Sumter counties — where it carried a connotation of dignity and status for communities rebuilding their identities under Reconstruction.
#20
Wright english
12,100
1 in 395
From Old English 'wyrhta', a craftsman who works with wood. Wright families are among the earliest documented surnames in the Tombigbee River valley (Sumter and Choctaw counties) — former Choctaw territory until the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek — appearing in county land surveys within a year of the treaty.
#1 Surname
Smith
People named #1
39,600
1 in every
121 residents
Top origin
English
State population
4,779,736
Census year
2010

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