United States last names
156,000+ US Census surnames
Smith, Johnson, Garcia, Nguyen, Patel
Generate US namesEnglish last names
126 surnames
Ingram, King, Knight, Goodwin, Barnes
Generate English namesIrish last names
103 surnames
Quigley, Foley, Sheridan, Lynch, Barry
Generate Irish namesScottish last names
88 surnames
Armstrong, Johnston, Paterson, Bruce, Galbraith
Generate Scottish namesWelsh last names
56 surnames
Owen, Price, Williams, Griffiths, Howells
Generate Welsh namesItalian last names
2,170 surnames
Bassi, Marino, Fontana, Santoro, Barone
Generate Italian namesSpanish last names
689 surnames
Reyes, Montoya, Rosas, Santana, Cisneros
Generate Spanish namesPortuguese last names
123 surnames
Pereira, Almeida, Mendes, Coelho, Monteiro
Generate Portuguese namesFrench last names
151 surnames
Roux, Fournier, Leroux, Thomas, Moulin
Generate French namesGerman last names
1,688 surnames
Alexander, Vogel, Metzger, Maier, Friedrich
Generate German namesDutch last names
131 surnames
Janssen, de Vries, van Leeuwen, Willems, de Groot
Generate Dutch namesScandinavian last names
262 surnames
Persson, Petersen, Pedersen, Svensson, Andersson
Generate Scandinavian namesFinnish last names
50 surnames
Anttila, Rantanen, Mattila, Kallio, Mäkelä
Generate Finnish namesPolish last names
712 surnames
Miller, Mazurek, Jankowski, Tomaszewski, Pawlak
Generate Polish namesCzech last names
997 surnames
Novotný, Beneš, Veselý, Sládek, Zima
Generate Czech namesHungarian last names
100 surnames
Pintér, Oláh, Balogh, Bálint, Nagy
Generate Hungarian namesRomanian last names
285 surnames
Solomon, Roman, Marin, Simon, Oprea
Generate Romanian namesGreek last names
189 surnames
Theodoridis, Daskalopoulos, Lykos, Dimitriou, Papageorgiou
Generate Greek namesRussian last names
250 surnames
Petrov, Tretyakov, Vasilev, Medvedev, Melnikov
Generate Russian namesTurkish last names
198 surnames
Sarıoğlu, Çevik, Hamzaoğlu, Taşçı, Nalbantoğlu
Generate Turkish namesArabic last names
48 surnames
Hassan, Sabbagh, Saleh, Hussein, Bitar
Generate Arabic namesIndian last names
91 surnames
Arora, Gandhi, Gowda, Sinha, Iyer
Generate Indian namesNigerian last names
133 surnames
Nwachukwu, Okeke, Balogun, Yusuf, Nwankwo
Generate Nigerian namesChinese last names
99 surnames
Shi, Wang, Gao, Zheng, Ma
Generate Chinese namesJapanese last names
123 surnames
Ishikawa, Takano, Nakayama, Nakagawa, Ikeda
Generate Japanese namesKorean last names
59 surnames
Kim, Moon, Lee, Lim, Do
Generate Korean namesVietnamese last names
39 surnames
Huynh, Nguyen, Hoang, Do, Tong
Generate Vietnamese namesFilipino last names
45 surnames
Fernandez, Reyes, Garcia, Salazar, Bautista
Generate Filipino names
Browse surnames by origin
Each card above shows five real surnames from one culture and how many names we have for it. Tap a card to open the random surname generator with that origin already picked, then press Generate names for a fresh batch. The six biggest lists also have their own pages: American last names, English surnames, German last names, Polish last names, Italian last names and Japanese surnames.
Last names with meanings
The generator doubles as a surname generator with meaning: many cards show what a surname means and what kind of name it is. We show a meaning only when standard surname dictionaries agree on it. If we can’t confirm a meaning, the card says so instead of guessing. Most surnames fall into five types:
- Occupational: named after a job, like Smith, Müller (miller) or Kovács (smith).
- Patronymic: taken from a father’s name, like Johnson, Ivanov or Fernandez.
- Locational: from a town or region, like Lancaster or Lombardi.
- Topographic: from where a family lived, like Hill, Rivera or Yamamoto (base of the mountain).
- Descriptive: from a nickname, like Brown, Klein (small) or Rossi (red-haired).
Where the names come from
US surnames come from the Census Bureau’s 2020 surname file. The other 27 lists come from open surname lists, which we cleaned by hand. See our data sources for details.
Frequently asked questions
How many surname origins can I choose from?
28: the United States plus 27 other cultures, from Irish and Italian to Nigerian, Korean and Filipino.
Does every name have a meaning?
No. We show a meaning only when we can confirm it. Coverage is highest for common US, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Hungarian and Japanese names. Cards without a confirmed meaning say so.
Can I find out where my own last name comes from?
Type it into the surname lookup. It shows how common the name is in the US and its meaning when we have one.