Top 3 — Georgia
Means 'son of John,' rooted in the Hebrew Yohanan via medieval English. It ranks especially high in Georgia due to its widespread adoption by African American families in Atlanta and Savannah after Emancipation.
Derived from the Old English smið, meaning metalworker or blacksmith. Smith spread across both the antebellum plantation belt and the Appalachian hill counties, making it Georgia's most universal surname.
Means 'son of William,' from the Germanic Willahelm. Georgia's large African American population, concentrated in Fulton and DeKalb counties, makes Williams unusually common relative to its national rank.
Name origins — top 20 surnames
Name origins - top 20 surnamesName origins — top 20 surnames
Heritage
African American Freedmen and Scots-Irish Mountain Settlers
After Emancipation in 1865, formerly enslaved Georgians across the Black Belt adopted surnames like Williams, Jackson, and Brown—names still heavily concentrated in Atlanta, Augusta, and Macon. Earlier, Scots-Irish families pushed into north Georgia's Blue Ridge foothills in the late 1700s, seeding the region with English surnames that persist in rural communities today.
Did you know? The surname Williams ranks higher in Georgia than in most other states, reflecting Atlanta's role as a major destination during the Great Migration of the early twentieth century.
Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Georgia
Showing all 20 surnames
#1
Smith
english
75,600
1 in 128
#2
Johnson
english
66,800
1 in 145
#3
Williams
welsh
63,900
1 in 152
#4
Jones
welsh
57,200
1 in 169
#5
Brown
english
52,300
1 in 185
#6
Davis
welsh
39,700
1 in 244
#7
Wilson
english
32,900
1 in 295
#8
Thomas
english
32,000
1 in 303
#9
Taylor
english
32,000
1 in 303
#10
Jackson
english
30,000
1 in 323
#11
Anderson
english
28,100
1 in 345
#12
White
english
27,100
1 in 357
#13
Harris
english
27,100
1 in 357
#14
Martin
latin
26,200
1 in 370
#15
Lewis
welsh
26,200
1 in 370
#16
Walker
english
25,200
1 in 384
#17
Robinson
english
24,200
1 in 400
#18
Thompson
english
24,200
1 in 400
#19
Garcia
spanish
23,300
1 in 416
#20
Clark
english
22,300
1 in 434
Local Insight
Uniquely Georgia
These family names rank far higher in Georgia than nationally — a direct fingerprint of the state's specific immigration waves.
Ranked #850 in Georgia versus #4500 nationally. That is 3650 spots higher here.
Trammell clusters in Georgia and neighboring Alabama more densely than anywhere else in the country. Early-nineteenth-century land grant records in the Georgia Piedmont show Trammell families among the region's first English-descended settlers.
Ranked #1100 in Georgia versus #6000 nationally. That is 4900 spots higher here.
Goolsby is a rare English surname found in higher concentrations in Georgia and the Carolinas than anywhere else. Early census records show Goolsby families in the Piedmont counties settled by Scots-Irish migrants in the 1790s and 1800s.
Ranked #1300 in Georgia versus #7000 nationally. That is 5700 spots higher here.
Tuggle appears in Georgia colonial and antebellum records at a frequency far above its national average. The name clusters in the upper Piedmont, where English-descended farming families established themselves before the Civil War.
Ranked #1500 in Georgia versus #8500 nationally. That is 7000 spots higher here.
Almand is a Germanic surname rare outside Georgia and a few neighboring states. Its concentration traces to German-speaking settlers who arrived in the Savannah area in the eighteenth century, particularly around Ebenezer in Effingham County.
Etymology
Georgia Last Name Meanings: Occupational, Patronymic & Habitational
English Colonial
Georgia's 1733 founding at Savannah brought English surnames like Smith, Harris, and Clark into the colony's earliest land grants and church records. These names spread inland along the Savannah and Oconee rivers as settlers pushed west through the eighteenth century.
African American Freedmen
After Georgia's emancipation in 1865, formerly enslaved people across the Black Belt adopted English surnames—Williams, Jackson, Brown, and Robinson among the most chosen. These names are now concentrated in Atlanta, Augusta, Macon, and Savannah, where African American communities expanded through the early twentieth century.
Scots-Irish Appalachian
Scots-Irish migrants entered north Georgia's Blue Ridge foothills in the late 1700s and early 1800s, settling river valleys and mountain coves. Surnames like Wilson, Anderson, and Thompson from these families persist in Cherokee, Gilmer, and Pickens counties today.
Hispanic/Latino
Hispanic workers began settling metro Atlanta and north Georgia's poultry-processing counties in significant numbers during the 1990s. Garcia and Martinez entered Georgia's most frequent surname lists within a single generation, reflecting one of the fastest-growing Hispanic communities in the South.
Quick Answers
What are the most common last names in Georgia?
Why are Williams and Jackson so common in Georgia?
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau — Frequently Occurring Surnames — 2010 Census surname frequency data — primary source for all counts, ratios, and rankings
- New Georgia Encyclopedia — Reference for Georgia settlement history, ethnic migration patterns, and regional demographics
- #1 Surname
- Smith
- People named #1
- 75,600
- 1 in every
- 128 residents
- Top origin
- English
- State population
- 9,687,653
- 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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