Genealogy & Demographics Alaska 2010 Census Top 20 Surnames

Most Common Last Names in Alaska

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Alaska

Top 20 Most Common Surnames - 2010 Census

Top 3 — Alaska

#2 scandinavian
Johnson
Patronymic
5,000 people
1 in every 142 Alaska residents

Son of John in English — and the most common Norwegian surname (from 'Johan'). Alaska's Johnson counts blend Scandinavian fishermen who dominated Petersburg and Kodiak's salmon industry between 1900 and 1940 with military families at Elmendorf AFB who arrived from the 1940s onward.

#1 english
Smith
Occupational
5,800 people
1 in every 122 Alaska residents

From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Fairbanks land records from 1903 — the year of the city's founding on the Tanana River — show Smith among the top three surnames of the first claim holders, arriving with the Gold Rush without any single ethnic community driving it.

#3 english
Williams
Patronymic
4,300 people
1 in every 165 Alaska residents

Son of William — Norman 'Willahelm', will plus helm. Elmendorf AFB and Fort Richardson's expansion in the 1940s–1960s brought a disproportionately military-connected African American community to Anchorage, where Williams is the most common surname in that demographic.

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Name origins - top 20 surnames

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Heritage

Gold Rush, Russian Missionaries, and Norwegian Fishermen

Under Russian rule (1741–1867), Orthodox missionaries required Alaska Natives to take Russian surnames at baptism, permanently embedding Petrov, Alexie, and similar names into Yup'ik and Alutiiq communities on the Yukon Delta and Kodiak Island. The 1898 Gold Rush stamped Skagway, Juneau, and Fairbanks with standard American names that now dominate the top 10. Norwegian settlers in Petersburg and Kodiak (1890s–1920s) then pushed Anderson and Nelson roughly 40 positions above their national rankings.

Did you know? More Alaska Natives bear Russian surnames — Petrov, Alexie, Pavlov — than surnames from their own languages, a legacy of Russian Orthodox missionaries who required Christian surnames for baptism across roughly 200 coastal villages between 1795 and 1867.

Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Alaska

Showing all 20 surnames

#1
Smith english
5,800
1 in 122
From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Fairbanks land records from 1903 — the year of the city's founding on the Tanana River — show Smith among the top three surnames of the first claim holders, arriving with the Gold Rush without any single ethnic community driving it.
#2
Johnson scandinavian
5,000
1 in 142
Son of John in English — and the most common Norwegian surname (from 'Johan'). Alaska's Johnson counts blend Scandinavian fishermen who dominated Petersburg and Kodiak's salmon industry between 1900 and 1940 with military families at Elmendorf AFB who arrived from the 1940s onward.
#3
Williams english
4,300
1 in 165
Son of William — Norman 'Willahelm', will plus helm. Elmendorf AFB and Fort Richardson's expansion in the 1940s–1960s brought a disproportionately military-connected African American community to Anchorage, where Williams is the most common surname in that demographic.
#4
Brown english
3,700
1 in 192
From Old English 'brún', brown hair or complexion. Brown spread through the Gold Rush and expanded further when BIA officials in the early 1900s assigned color surnames to Alaska Native families in Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages — one of the few top-10 names with both settler and administrative-assignment roots in Alaska.
#5
Jones english
3,400
1 in 209
Son of John via Welsh 'Ioan'. Welsh-descended miners from Utah and Nevada who joined the 1898 Klondike rush brought Jones to Alaska; Juneau and Skagway land records — the two gateway towns — show it among the top 10 surnames of original claim holders.
#6
Anderson scandinavian
3,000
1 in 237
Son of Anders — one of the most common surnames across Norway and Sweden. Petersburg's Norwegian founder Peter Buschmann recruited almost exclusively from Kinn County in western Norway in 1897, and Anderson families followed within the decade, making it one of the founding surnames of southeast Alaska's commercial fishing industry.
#7
Miller english
2,800
1 in 254
From Old English 'mylenweard', a grain miller. Miller Creek — a tributary of Goldstream Creek north of Fairbanks — was named after a Gold Rush claim-holding family, and the surname appears consistently in Fairbanks mining records from 1903–1910.
#8
Davis english
2,600
1 in 273
Son of David, from Hebrew 'Dāwīḏ' (beloved). Fort Davis — a decommissioned Army post near Nome built after the Spanish-American War — reflects the name's early federal footprint in western Alaska, reinforced by military families who arrived during the 1940s–1950s infrastructure boom.
#9
Wilson english
2,500
1 in 284
Son of Will (William). Wilson spread through Alaska via cannery labor contractors in Seattle and Portland — Wilson families from Oregon and Washington were among the most common recruits shipped north to Kodiak, Ketchikan, and Bristol Bay in the early 1900s, and some settled permanently.
#10
Nelson scandinavian
2,500
1 in 284
Son of Niels — a Scandinavian form equivalent to Nicholas. Nelson's presence in Alaska's top 10 is almost entirely explained by Norwegian fishing communities in Petersburg, Sitka, and Kodiak, where it peaked alongside Anderson during the commercial fishing migration of 1900–1930.
#11
Taylor english
2,300
1 in 309
From Old French 'tailleur', a tailor. Taylor families appear in Juneau mining records from the 1880s during the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mine's early development — many were veterans of California and Nevada mining camps who followed gold north to the Klondike and Tanana Valley.
#12
Thomas english
2,100
1 in 338
From Aramaic 'Tʼōmā', meaning twin. Where Russian Orthodox missionaries gave coastal Alaska Natives Russian surnames, Presbyterian missions in Tlingit and Haida communities at Wrangell, Kake, and Hydaburg introduced English patronymics — Thomas became one of the most widely adopted from the 1870s onward.
#13
Moore english
2,100
1 in 338
From Old English 'mōr', near open moorland. Moore appears in Sitka land records from the 1870s — carried by Irish-descended workers when Sitka was still the territorial capital and the only significant Euro-American settlement after the 1867 purchase from Russia.
#14
Thompson english
1,900
1 in 374
Son of Thom, with 'p' inserted as a 15th-century spelling convention. Presbyterian missions in Tlingit communities along the Inside Passage — particularly Wrangell and Kake — introduced Thompson as a standard English patronymic, displacing clan-based naming systems from the 1870s onward.
#15
White english
1,900
1 in 374
From Old English 'hwīt', white hair. White arrived through the Nome gold rush of 1899–1900 and spread further through BIA color-name assignments in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta — the same administrative practice that spread Brown in western Alaska.
#16
Harris english
1,800
1 in 394
Son of Harry, a medieval form of Henry (Germanic 'Heimirich'). Richard Harris, a Canadian prospector who co-discovered gold at Silver Bow Basin in 1880, is recognized as co-founder of Juneau — giving this already-common surname a founding-era resonance in Alaska's capital that sets it apart from its generic national profile.
#17
Clark english
1,700
1 in 418
From Latin 'clericus', a literate person. Clark clusters in Juneau and Sitka because both served as territorial capitals — the U.S. Army Signal Corps surveys of the 1880s–1890s and the civilian government that followed drew heavily on literate administrators from the Lower 48, making Clark nearly absent from rural Alaska Native communities.
#18
Martin french
1,700
1 in 418
From Latin 'Martinus', of Mars. Catholic missionaries working along the Yukon River in the late 1800s assigned Martin to interior Alaska Native communities alongside Russian-origin surnames — reinforced by French-Canadian Hudson's Bay Company traders who had worked the Yukon drainage before the 1867 American purchase.
#19
Lewis english
1,600
1 in 444
From Welsh 'Llywelyn' or Germanic 'Hlodwig'. Lewis entered Alaska through Welsh-descended Gold Rush miners and U.S. Army survey teams in the 1880s–1900s — several Tanana Valley geographic features carry the name from that mapping period.
#20
Lee english
1,600
1 in 444
From Old English 'lēah', near a meadow. Lee in Alaska has dual roots: Gold Rush-era English settlers and the Korean American community in Anchorage — where Lee/Yi is the most common surname — connected through Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Local Insight

Uniquely Alaska

These family names rank far higher in Alaska than nationally — a direct fingerprint of the state's specific immigration waves.

Alaska State Archives english

Ranked #0 in Alaska and not reliably ranked nationally in this dataset.

University of Alaska Fairbanks — Alaska Native Knowledge Network english

Ranked #0 in Alaska and not reliably ranked nationally in this dataset.

#1 Surname
Smith
People named #1
5,800
1 in every
122 residents
Top origin
English
State population
710,231
Census year
2010

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