Top 3 — Indiana
Means 'son of John,' rooted in the Hebrew Yohanan. In Indiana, Johnson spread widely with Scots-English settlers who followed the National Road westward from the Ohio border during the early 1800s.
Derived from Old English smið, denoting an ironworker or metalsmith. Smith leads Indiana surname lists statewide and was especially dense in the manufacturing corridor from Terre Haute through Indianapolis, where metalworking trades sustained large workforces through the early twentieth century.
Means 'son of William,' from the Norman-French given name Guillaume. Williams became one of the most common surnames in Indiana's Black communities during the Great Migration, when tens of thousands relocated to Indianapolis and Gary between 1910 and 1940.
Name origins — top 20 surnames
Name origins - top 20 surnamesName origins — top 20 surnames
Heritage
German Settlers, Scots-Irish Pioneers, and the Great Migration
German Catholics established close communities in Dubois County by the 1840s, leaving occupational surnames like Schaefer and Betz unusually concentrated there. Scots-Irish families from Kentucky and Tennessee moved north along the National Road into the south-central counties. During the Great Migration, Black families from Mississippi and Alabama transformed Indianapolis's near-north side and crowded into Gary, where U.S. Steel's Gary Works drew workers by the thousands.
Did you know? Dubois County has one of the highest concentrations of German Catholic surnames outside Pennsylvania, a legacy of a mid-nineteenth-century Catholic mission settlement that drew families from Baden and Bavaria.
Top 20 Most Common Last Names in Indiana
Showing all 20 surnames
#1
Smith
english
59,600
1 in 109
#2
Johnson
english
45,400
1 in 143
#3
Williams
welsh
38,300
1 in 169
#4
Jones
welsh
35,700
1 in 182
#5
Brown
english
35,000
1 in 185
#6
Miller
english
31,100
1 in 208
#7
Davis
welsh
27,200
1 in 238
#8
Wilson
english
21,400
1 in 303
#9
Moore
english
20,100
1 in 323
#10
Taylor
english
18,800
1 in 345
#11
Anderson
english
18,100
1 in 358
#12
Thomas
welsh
16,900
1 in 383
#13
Martin
french
15,600
1 in 416
#14
Jackson
english
14,900
1 in 435
#15
White
english
14,900
1 in 435
#16
Harris
english
14,300
1 in 453
#17
Thompson
english
13,000
1 in 499
#18
Garcia
spanish
11,000
1 in 589
#19
Martinez
spanish
10,400
1 in 624
#20
Robinson
english
9,700
1 in 668
Local Insight
Uniquely Indiana
These family names rank far higher in Indiana than nationally — a direct fingerprint of the state's specific immigration waves.
Ranked #1800 in Indiana versus #4000 nationally. That is 2200 spots higher here.
The Studebaker family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania and then to South Bend in the 1850s, where their wagon and later automobile company made the name synonymous with Indiana manufacturing. The surname remains disproportionately concentrated in St. Joseph County.
Ranked #3500 in Indiana versus #7000 nationally. That is 3500 spots higher here.
The Hulman family of Terre Haute built a grocery and baking-powder empire in the late 1800s and purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945, making the name uniquely prominent in Indiana's commercial and motorsport history.
Ranked #4500 in Indiana versus #9000 nationally. That is 4500 spots higher here.
A rare German surname brought to Indianapolis in the mid-1800s by hardware merchants and architects, it became internationally recognized through novelist Kurt Vonnegut but remains almost exclusively associated with the Indianapolis German community.
Etymology
Indiana Last Name Meanings: Occupational, Patronymic & Habitational
German Occupational & Craft Names
German settlers in Dubois County and Tell City brought occupational surnames that track craft trades — Schreiner (carpenter), Weber (weaver), Schmidt (blacksmith). Many anglicized spelling over generations, creating parallel Smith/Schmidt clusters unique to southwestern Indiana and distinguishing it from the rest of the Midwest.
English & Scots-Irish Patronymics
Early settlers crossing the Ohio River from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia brought the dense patronymic surnames — Johnson, Wilson, Thompson — that still dominate Indiana's rural south-central counties. Following the National Road and river valleys northward, they established these names across the state by 1840.
Great Migration Surnames
Between 1910 and 1950, Black families from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia brought surnames like Williams, Jackson, and Robinson to Indianapolis and Gary. Gary's U.S. Steel plant was a defining draw, and the surnames of those founding generations remain characteristic of Lake County today.
Spanish Surnames
Hispanic surnames entered Indiana primarily from the 1990s onward as Mexican and Central American families settled in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and towns like Logansport. Garcia and Martinez now rank in Indiana's top 20, reflecting one of the Midwest's faster-growing Latino populations.
Quick Answers
What are the most common last names in Indiana?
Why is Miller such a common last name in Indiana?
Why are Garcia and Martinez rising in Indiana?
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau — Frequently Occurring Surnames — 2010 Census surname frequency data — primary source for all counts, ratios, and rankings
- Indiana State Library — Genealogy Division — State-level genealogy records and migration history resources for Indiana research
- #1 Surname
- Smith
- People named #1
- 59,600
- 1 in every
- 109 residents
- Top origin
- English
- State population
- 6,483,802
- 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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