Top 3 — Florida
Means 'son of John,' from the Hebrew Yohanan. It spread through Florida during the late 19th century as English-speaking migrants from the Deep South followed Henry Flagler's railroad lines south into the peninsula.
Derived from the Old English smið, meaning a metalworker or blacksmith. In Florida, the name arrived with Anglo settlers who farmed North Florida's panhandle counties and established early towns like Pensacola and Tallahassee in the early 1800s.
Means 'son of William,' from the Germanic Willahelm. Williams ranks high in Florida partly because of historically large African-American communities in Jacksonville and Miami, where the surname is strongly concentrated.
Name origins — top 20 surnames
Name origins - top 20 surnamesName origins — top 20 surnames
Heritage
Anglo Pioneer, Cuban, and Puerto Rican Heritage
North Florida's Anglo surnames trace to Scots-Irish and English settlers who farmed the panhandle in the early 1800s. Miami-Dade's Cuban community, which grew rapidly after 1959, drove Spanish surnames like Garcia and Suarez into the state's top ranks. Puerto Rican families settling in Osceola County since the 1980s added Hernandez, Reyes, and Rivera to Central Florida's landscape.
Did you know? Hialeah — a city in Miami-Dade County that was over 96 percent Hispanic in 2010 — is the engine behind Garcia, Suarez, and Martinez ranking among Florida's most common surnames.
Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Florida
Showing all 20 surnames
#1
Smith
english
155,700
1 in 121
#2
Johnson
english
123,200
1 in 153
#3
Williams
welsh
116,100
1 in 162
#4
Garcia
spanish
110,000
1 in 171
#5
Jones
welsh
100,200
1 in 188
#6
Brown
english
87,800
1 in 214
#7
Martinez
spanish
80,000
1 in 235
#8
Davis
welsh
79,000
1 in 238
#9
Rodriguez
spanish
75,000
1 in 251
#10
Hernandez
spanish
65,000
1 in 289
#11
Wilson
english
63,200
1 in 298
#12
Moore
english
58,800
1 in 320
#13
Taylor
english
58,500
1 in 321
#14
Anderson
english
58,200
1 in 323
#15
Thomas
english
57,300
1 in 328
#16
Jackson
english
56,200
1 in 335
#17
White
english
52,100
1 in 361
#18
Harris
english
51,300
1 in 367
#19
Martin
english
49,700
1 in 378
#20
Thompson
english
49,200
1 in 382
Local Insight
Uniquely Florida
These family names rank far higher in Florida than nationally — a direct fingerprint of the state's specific immigration waves.
Ranked #40 in Florida versus #500 nationally. That is 460 spots higher here.
Suarez is disproportionately concentrated in Miami-Dade County because of the dense Cuban-American community built in Hialeah and Little Havana after 1959. It ranks far higher in Florida than in any other southeastern state.
Ranked #25 in Florida versus #100 nationally. That is 75 spots higher here.
Diaz ranks significantly higher in Florida than its national standing because of Cuban and Puerto Rican settlement across South Florida and the Orlando metro since the 1960s. Miami-Dade County accounts for a large share of all Florida Diaz households.
Ranked #48 in Florida versus #200 nationally. That is 152 spots higher here.
Alvarez is concentrated in South Florida's Cuban exile community, particularly in Hialeah and Coral Gables, where waves of immigration after 1959 established tight family networks that persist across generations.
Ranked #120 in Florida versus #350 nationally. That is 230 spots higher here.
Padilla is overrepresented in Osceola County, tied to Puerto Rican migration that accelerated through the 1980s and 1990s as families relocated from New York and directly from Puerto Rico to the Orlando metro.
Ranked #300 in Florida versus #700 nationally. That is 400 spots higher here.
Crews is a distinctly North Central Florida surname concentrated in Marion and Levy counties, where Anglo pioneer families with this name settled during the territorial period of the 1830s and established multigenerational roots.
Etymology
Florida Last Name Meanings: Occupational, Patronymic & Habitational
Spanish Patronymics
Florida's large Cuban and Puerto Rican communities pushed Spanish patronymics — Garcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, and Hernandez — into the state's top ten. Miami-Dade County, rebuilt by post-1959 Cuban exiles, and Osceola County, with one of the highest Puerto Rican concentrations in the continental U.S., are the twin engines of this pattern.
English Occupational
Occupational surnames like Smith and Taylor arrived with Scots-Irish and English settlers moving into North Florida's panhandle during the early territorial period of the 1820s. These families built the first Anglo communities around Pensacola, Tallahassee, and Marianna.
English and Welsh Patronymics
Patronymics like Johnson, Williams, Jones, and Davis dominate Florida's top twenty, carried south by Anglo settlers from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia in the early 1800s. Williams and Jackson also reflect the African-American tradition of adopting English patronymics after emancipation in the post-Civil War South.
Quick Answers
What are the most common last names in Florida?
Why are Hispanic last names so common in Florida?
Why are Cuban last names so common in Florida?
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau — Frequently Occurring Surnames — 2010 Census surname frequency data — primary source for all counts, ratios, and rankings
- Pew Research Center — Hispanic Population in the United States — Background research on Cuban and Puerto Rican migration patterns used to contextualize surname distribution in South and Central Florida
- #1 Surname
- Smith
- People named #1
- 155,700
- 1 in every
- 121 residents
- Top origin
- English
- State population
- 18,801,310
- Census year
- 2010
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Top 20 most common surnames per state - with origins, meanings, and heritage context. Is yours on the list?
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