Genealogy & Demographics New Hampshire 2010 Census Top 20 Surnames

Most Common Last Names in New Hampshire

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New Hampshire

Top 20 Most Common Surnames - 2010 Census

Top 3 — New Hampshire

#2 english
Brown
Descriptive
3,623 people
1 in every 96 New Hampshire residents

From Old English 'brun', referring to brown hair, clothing, or complexion. Brown is one of the plain English surnames that spread early through seacoast and inland farm towns and remained strong because New Hampshire never had a single immigrant group large enough to push it aside.

#1 english
Smith
Occupational
4,873 people
1 in every 71 New Hampshire residents

From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Smith has been present since New Hampshire's first English settlements on the Piscataqua in 1623, and later industrial towns such as Manchester kept the classic trade surname at the top statewide.

#3 welsh
Davis
Patronymic
2,589 people
1 in every 134 New Hampshire residents

Son of David, from Hebrew 'Dawid', beloved. Davis fits New Hampshire's older English and Welsh New England stock and stayed common as families moved from the seacoast into Merrimack Valley and Connecticut River towns.

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Name origins - top 20 surnames

Name origins — top 20 surnames

Heritage

Colonial Seacoast Families and French-Canadian Mill Towns

New Hampshire's first permanent English settlement began at Dover in 1623, and many of the surnames that still look distinctively New England were planted in that early seacoast world. The older layer never disappeared because the state remained relatively small and lightly urbanized, allowing founding-family names such as Sanborn, Kimball, Merrill, Colby, and Sargent to stay unusually visible. A later industrial layer arrived through the Amoskeag mills and other factories: New Hampshire Historical Society data shows more than 50,000 New Hampshire residents in 1920 had been born in Canada, especially Quebec, and Manchester employers were recruiting French-Canadian workers in French by 1895.

Did you know? Sanborn ranks fifth in New Hampshire but only 1,125th nationally in Forebears' U.S. ranking, one of the clearest signs that old New England family names still shape the state's surname map.

Top 20 Most Common Last Names in New Hampshire

Showing all 20 surnames

#1
Smith english
4,873
1 in 71
From Old English 'smið', a metalworker. Smith has been present since New Hampshire's first English settlements on the Piscataqua in 1623, and later industrial towns such as Manchester kept the classic trade surname at the top statewide.
#2
Brown english
3,623
1 in 96
From Old English 'brun', referring to brown hair, clothing, or complexion. Brown is one of the plain English surnames that spread early through seacoast and inland farm towns and remained strong because New Hampshire never had a single immigrant group large enough to push it aside.
#3
Davis welsh
2,589
1 in 134
Son of David, from Hebrew 'Dawid', beloved. Davis fits New Hampshire's older English and Welsh New England stock and stayed common as families moved from the seacoast into Merrimack Valley and Connecticut River towns.
#4
Clark english
2,064
1 in 168
From Latin 'clericus', a clerk or scholar. Clark ranks unusually high in New Hampshire because it belongs to the colony's early record-keeping culture of church towns, courts, and schools, then remained visible in small-city business centers such as Concord and Portsmouth.
#5
Sanborn english
1,709
1 in 203
A place-based surname from Sambourne in Warwickshire, Anglicized in New England as Sanborn. Few names look more rooted in New Hampshire: Sanborn family records run deep in Hampton, and the town of Sanbornton preserves the surname in the map itself.
#6
Chase english
1,651
1 in 210
From Old French 'chace', a hunter or huntsman. Chase is one of the old Yankee surnames that spread through southern and central New Hampshire long before the mill era, giving the state a more colonial surname profile than most of the Northeast.
#7
Hall english
1,559
1 in 222
Originally for someone who lived or worked at a hall or manor house. Hall is common across New England, but in New Hampshire its durability reflects continuity from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century farming towns rather than one late immigrant surge.
#8
Johnson english
1,495
1 in 232
Son of John, from Hebrew 'Yohanan', God is gracious. Johnson is common almost everywhere in the United States, but in New Hampshire it sits below several older Yankee surnames, which shows how unusually persistent the state's colonial family layer remains.
#9
Stevens english
1,411
1 in 245
From Stephen, from Greek 'stephanos', crown. Stevens has deep roots in New Hampshire town records and reflects the same long-settled English family networks that keep names like Sanborn and Chase high on the list.
#10
Jones welsh
1,391
1 in 249
The classic Welsh surname, son of John via 'Ioan'. Jones traveled into New Hampshire with English and Welsh settlers and stayed common enough to remain in the top ten even in a state with many rarer colonial surnames.
#11
Young english
1,371
1 in 253
From Old English 'geong', often used to distinguish a younger man from an older relative of the same name. New Hampshire's many small towns favored that kind of practical surname, and Young still reads as an old rural New England name.
#12
Hill english
1,320
1 in 262
For someone who lived on or near a hill. In a state defined by uplands, not broad plains, Hill spread naturally through village and farm settlement and remained one of New Hampshire's most stable landscape surnames.
#13
Kimball english
1,245
1 in 278
Derived from an old personal name related to 'Cynebald', usually interpreted as bold kin. Kimball is a strong New Hampshire surname because the family became prominent in places such as Concord, where Kimball land and institutions still mark the city landscape.
#14
Thompson english
1,238
1 in 280
Son of Thom, a short form of Thomas. Thompson belongs to the broad English surname layer that arrived early and stayed durable across New Hampshire's seacoast, river towns, and interior villages.
#15
Merrill english
1,175
1 in 295
Usually traced to an older personal name that became Merrill or Merrell in English records. Its high rank in New Hampshire points to long-established Yankee family lines rather than recent migration, which is why the name sits far above its national profile here.
#16
French english
1,170
1 in 296
An English surname meaning a person from France. In New Hampshire the name gained extra visibility because it fit two different histories at once: an old English colonial surname and the later prominence of French-speaking mill workers from Quebec in cities such as Manchester.
#17
White english
1,128
1 in 307
From Old English 'hwit', usually describing very fair hair or complexion. White is one of the oldest plain-English surnames in New Hampshire and stayed widely distributed as settlement moved inland from the seacoast.
#18
Perkins english
1,104
1 in 314
From Perkin, a medieval diminutive of Peter. Perkins is another surname with a distinctly old New England feel, preserved by multigenerational family networks in a small state with strong town continuity.
#19
Colby english
1,064
1 in 326
A place-name surname from Old Norse elements meaning dark or coal settlement. Colby is strongly tied to New Hampshire through the Colby family of New London, whose name survives in Colby Hill and Colby-Sawyer College.
#20
Sargent french
1,049
1 in 330
From Old French 'sergent', a servant, officer, or military attendant. Sargent is another surname that feels especially New England because it arrived early and stayed rooted in small towns instead of being diluted by later mass immigration.

Local Insight

Uniquely New Hampshire

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

Sanborn english

Ranked #5 in New Hampshire versus #1125 nationally. That is 1120 spots higher here.

Sanborn is one of New Hampshire's clearest founding-family surnames. Hampton records preserve the name deep into the colonial period, and Sanbornton keeps it visible on the state map, which helps explain why the surname ranks fifth here but sits far lower nationally.

Kimball english

Ranked #13 in New Hampshire versus #530 nationally. That is 517 spots higher here.

Kimball remained unusually common in New Hampshire because the family became prominent in central New Hampshire civic life. Concord still has Kimball landmarks, and the name's persistence shows how strongly old local family networks stayed in place.

Merrill english

Ranked #15 in New Hampshire versus #476 nationally. That is 461 spots higher here.

Merrill is much more concentrated in northern New England than in the country as a whole, and New Hampshire is one of its strongest centers. The surname reflects older Yankee settlement patterns that never disappeared under a later big-city naming wave.

Colby english

Ranked #19 in New Hampshire versus #1211 nationally. That is 1192 spots higher here.

Colby is tied closely to New Hampshire through New London, where Joseph Colby and his descendants shaped the town's religious, commercial, and educational life and later gave their name to Colby Academy, now Colby-Sawyer College. That local prominence helps keep the surname far more visible here than nationally.

French english

Ranked #16 in New Hampshire versus #226 nationally. That is 210 spots higher here.

French ranks unusually well in New Hampshire because the state's industrial era reinforced an already old surname with a large French-Canadian presence. Manchester's mills were recruiting Quebec workers in French by 1895, and by 1920 more than 50,000 New Hampshire residents had been born in Canada, especially Quebec.

Etymology

New Hampshire Last Name Meanings: Occupational, Patronymic & Habitational

Colonial New England Family Names

New Hampshire's most distinctive surname layer is not immigrant and not modern. It is old New England. Sanborn, Kimball, Merrill, Colby, Sargent, and Chase all rank much higher here than their national profiles would suggest because small-town family continuity remained unusually strong from the seventeenth century onward.

Sanborn (place-name surname) Kimball (from an old personal name) Merrill (old English personal-name surname) Colby (settlement surname)

Patronymic Names

Patronymics still make up a large share of New Hampshire's top 20, but they do not dominate the list the way they do in many Southern and Midwestern states. Davis, Johnson, Stevens, Jones, Thompson, and Perkins stayed strong because the state preserved an older English and Welsh naming base rather than replacing it with newer mass-migration surnames.

Davis (son of David) Johnson (son of John) Jones (son of John, Welsh) Thompson (son of Thom)

Occupational and Descriptive Names

Smith, Clark, and Sargent show how many of New Hampshire's common surnames began as jobs, while Brown, Young, and White come from plain spoken descriptive labels. That mix fits a state built by small settlements, local trades, mills, and family farms rather than by one giant immigrant metropolis.

Smith (metalworker) Clark (clerk) Sargent (officer or attendant) Brown (brown-haired or brown-clad)

Quick Answers

What are the most common last names in New Hampshire?
The most common last names in New Hampshire are Smith, Brown, Davis, Clark, and Sanborn. That top five is more old New England than most state rankings, with Sanborn standing out as a rare colonial family surname in the statewide top tier.
Why are Sanborn and Kimball so common in New Hampshire?
Sanborn and Kimball are so common in New Hampshire because the state kept unusually strong continuity from its colonial and early republic family networks. Small-town settlement, lower big-city churn, and the survival of place names and institutions tied to those families helped keep both surnames far more visible here than in the country as a whole.

Sources

Information is cross-referenced with official state archives.
#1 Surname
Smith
People named #1
4,873
1 in every
71 residents
Top origin
English
State population
1,316,470
Census year
2010

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