Genealogy & Demographics Arizona 2010 Census Top 20 Surnames

Most Common Last Names in Arizona

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Arizona

Top 20 Most Common Surnames - 2010 Census

Top 3 — Arizona

#2 english
Smith
Occupational
48,000 people
1 in every 133 Arizona residents

From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Arizona Territory silver camps at Tombstone (Cochise County, 1879) and copper mines at Bisbee (1880s) planted Smith across southeastern Arizona; the name reached every county as Phoenix's postwar suburban expansion drew Midwestern families through the 1950s and 1960s.

#1 spanish
Garcia
Patronymic
77,000 people
1 in every 83 Arizona residents

Basque 'Gartzea' — possibly 'young man' — entered Castilian via Navarre in the 9th century and became Iberia's most widely recorded medieval patronymic. Jesuit missionaries and presidio soldiers carried Garcia north from Sonora into the Santa Cruz Valley by the 1690s; it anchored Tucson's Barrio Histórico and the Mexican-American labor communities of South Phoenix through the cotton and railroad migrations of the 1900s–1920s.

#3 spanish
Martinez
Patronymic
46,000 people
1 in every 139 Arizona residents

Son of Martin, from Latin 'Martinus' (of Mars) — the feast of Saint Martin of Tours made the given name standard across Catholic Europe. Martinez families worked the copper smelters of Clifton and Morenci (Greenlee County) from the 1880s through the mid-20th century, forming the oldest continuous Mexican-American mining community in Arizona.

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Name origins - top 20 surnames

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Heritage

Tucson's 1775 Presidio and the Navajo Nation

Tucson's Barrio Histórico traces Spanish-speaking settlement to 1775, when the presidio relocated from Tubac, placing Garcia at Arizona's top while the region was still Mexican territory. Mormon pioneers colonized the Little Colorado River valley (Snowflake, Navajo County) between 1876 and 1885, adding the English patronymics that fill Arizona's middle ranks. The Navajo Nation's Apache and Navajo counties produced Begay — a surname virtually absent from the other 49 states.

Did you know? Begay — derived from the Navajo particle 'biyé' (his son) — is shared by more than 8,000 Arizona residents, a count that exceeds the combined Begay population of all other 49 states.

Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Arizona

Showing all 20 surnames

#1
Garcia spanish
77,000
1 in 83
Basque 'Gartzea' — possibly 'young man' — entered Castilian via Navarre in the 9th century and became Iberia's most widely recorded medieval patronymic. Jesuit missionaries and presidio soldiers carried Garcia north from Sonora into the Santa Cruz Valley by the 1690s; it anchored Tucson's Barrio Histórico and the Mexican-American labor communities of South Phoenix through the cotton and railroad migrations of the 1900s–1920s.
#2
Smith english
48,000
1 in 133
From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Arizona Territory silver camps at Tombstone (Cochise County, 1879) and copper mines at Bisbee (1880s) planted Smith across southeastern Arizona; the name reached every county as Phoenix's postwar suburban expansion drew Midwestern families through the 1950s and 1960s.
#3
Martinez spanish
46,000
1 in 139
Son of Martin, from Latin 'Martinus' (of Mars) — the feast of Saint Martin of Tours made the given name standard across Catholic Europe. Martinez families worked the copper smelters of Clifton and Morenci (Greenlee County) from the 1880s through the mid-20th century, forming the oldest continuous Mexican-American mining community in Arizona.
#4
Johnson english
36,000
1 in 178
Hebrew 'Yohanan' (God is gracious) traveled through Greek and Latin before John became the dominant given name in medieval English parishes — and Johnson its expected patronymic. Midwestern homesteaders arriving on Salt River Project land grants in Maricopa County after Roosevelt Dam opened irrigation in 1911 brought Johnson in disproportionate numbers from Kansas.
#5
Williams english
33,000
1 in 194
Norman 'Willahelm' — will plus helm — made William the dominant post-Conquest English given name, and Williams its patronymic heir. Williams families settled the ponderosa plateau of Yavapai and Coconino counties in the 1880s–1900s as the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad opened northern Arizona to Anglo ranching and timber operations.
#6
Hernandez spanish
32,000
1 in 200
Germanic 'Friðunanð' (bold journey) filtered through Visigothic Spain as Fernando and Hernando before becoming a standard Castilian patronymic by the 16th century. Hernandez concentrations peak in Yuma County — where Mexican farmworker families arrived with the All-American Canal's agricultural expansion in the 1930s–1950s — making it the highest-density Hernandez county in Arizona.
#7
Brown english
30,000
1 in 213
From Old English 'brún', brown hair or complexion. Brown families appear in Maricopa County's earliest tax rolls in the 1870s–1880s, tied to the Anglo ranching and freighting operations that preceded Phoenix's 1881 incorporation, and remain concentrated in the East Valley suburbs of Mesa and Gilbert.
#8
Jones english
28,000
1 in 228
The defining Welsh surname — son of John via 'Ioan'. Mormon settlers from Welsh-origin Utah communities brought Jones to the Little Colorado River valley (Navajo and Apache counties) in the 1876–1885 colonization wave, giving northeastern Arizona a Jones concentration that still exceeds the national per-capita rate.
#9
Davis english
26,000
1 in 246
Son of David, from Hebrew 'Dāwīḏ' (beloved). Davis families established citrus and alfalfa farms in the Salt River Project (Maricopa County) in the 1910s–1920s, drawn by the federal reclamation works that converted the Phoenix basin from desert scrub into irrigated farmland.
#10
Miller english
23,000
1 in 278
From Middle English 'milnere', one who operates a grain mill. Miller families concentrated in Maricopa County's canal-fed farming towns — Chandler — in the 1910s–1930s, many of them arriving after relatives had already settled the Imperial Valley on the California side of the Colorado River.
#11
Wilson english
21,000
1 in 304
Son of Will, a contraction of William. Wilson appears in territorial Arizona court records from Prescott (Yavapai County) in the 1860s–1870s, carried by Anglo miners and merchants who followed the Army's Fort Whipple garrison into what became the territorial capital in 1863.
#12
Lopez spanish
20,500
1 in 312
Latin 'Lupus' (wolf) gave Iberia the given name Lope and its patronymic Lopez across the medieval kingdoms of Castile and León. Lopez families settled Pinal County's Gila River valley agricultural labor camps in the 1920s–1940s as cotton farming expanded east of Phoenix, giving Pinal County one of the highest Lopez densities outside Tucson's Pima County.
#13
Moore english
20,000
1 in 320
From Old English 'mōr', someone near open uncultivated moorland. Moore families arrived with the Southern Pacific Railroad's construction through Pima and Pinal counties in the 1870s–1880s and settled along the Tucson-to-Yuma corridor in the years before statehood in 1912.
#14
Anderson scottish
19,000
1 in 337
Son of Anders (Andrew), from Greek 'Andreas' (manly). Scandinavian-origin Anderson families from Utah colonized the White Mountain plateau (Snowflake, Taylor, Show Low in Navajo and Apache counties) in the 1880s–1890s, giving northeastern Arizona a disproportionate Anderson presence relative to the state's population center.
#15
Taylor english
18,500
1 in 346
From Old French 'tailleur', one who cuts cloth. Taylor, Arizona (Navajo County) was co-founded by LDS settlers in 1878 and named to honor Church President John Taylor — the name's concentration across the White Mountain corridor directly reflects that original Mormon colonization.
#16
Thomas english
17,000
1 in 376
Aramaic 'Tʼōmā' (twin) — the apostle's name spread across medieval Christendom. Thomas families arrived with Arizona's defense industry buildup of the 1940s–1950s — Goodyear Aircraft (Litchfield Park) drew Anglo workers from the Midwest who concentrated the name in Maricopa County.
#17
Robinson english
15,500
1 in 412
Son of Robin, a medieval diminutive of Robert (Germanic 'Hrōdbert', fame-bright). Robinson families appear in Tucson's African American community records from the 1880s–1920s, concentrated in the south-side railroad district that grew around the Southern Pacific shops and the Dunbar School neighborhood.
#18
White english
15,000
1 in 426
From Old English 'hwīt', white hair or pale complexion. White families settled the Sulphur Springs Valley (Cochise County) in the 1880s–1890s as cattle ranching replaced Apache conflicts in southeastern Arizona, and the name remains overrepresented in the ranching communities east of Bisbee relative to Phoenix's metro core.
#19
Thompson english
14,500
1 in 441
Son of Thom, with the 'p' inserted as a 15th-century scribal spelling convention. Thompson families homesteaded the San Pedro River valley (Graham and Cochise counties) in the late 1880s–1890s after the Army's pacification of the Chiricahua Apache in 1886 opened southeastern Arizona to Anglo ranching.
#20
Jackson english
14,000
1 in 457
Medieval 'Jack' — a diminutive of John so common it briefly served as a generic English word for any common man — produced Jackson as a patronymic throughout the British Isles. Jackson families arrived with Phoenix's wartime and postwar expansion in the 1940s–1950s, drawn by Luke Field and the aviation manufacturing corridor, and concentrated in the African American community of the South Mountain district.

Local Insight

Uniquely Arizona

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

Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records english

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

Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department english

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

#1 Surname
Garcia
People named #1
77,000
1 in every
83 residents
Top origin
English
State population
6,392,017
Census year
2010

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