# Boston (surname)

Source: https://namelineage.com/surname/boston/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. Counts from the US Census Bureau; origin and etymology from Wiktionary; bearers from Wikidata. Data updated 2026-11-11.

A habitational surname transferred from the place name.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 15,814 |
| US rank (2010) | 2,309 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 19,524 people |
| Change since 2000 | +5.4% (15,003 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈbɔstən/, 2 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

The US city is named after the English town (from which several prominent colonists had come), which itself is sometimes said to be named as a contraction of Botolph's town or Botolph's stone (the name Botolph itself coming from Old English Botwulf, from boda + wulf). However, this is uncertain.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Boston in the 2010 US Census by the Census's own race and ethnicity groups. The Census suppresses a share when the count behind it is small.

| Group | Share |
|---|---|
| White (not Hispanic) | 53% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 41% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.4% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.5% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.8% |
| Two or more races | 2.8% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Boston in the United States.

## People named Boston

- Rachel Boston, American actress
- Aliyah Boston, American basketball player (born 2001)
- Lawrence Boston, American basketball player
- Brandon Boston Jr., American basketball player (born 2001)

## Similar surnames

Boughton, Bustamante, Buxton, Bastian, Baisden, Bastien, Bogdan, Becton, Bastin, Basden.

## How to read these numbers

A Census count is people alive and counted in 2010, not births, and names occurring fewer than 100 times are not published at all. Ethnicity shares are the Census's own categories.