Skip to content
Name Lineage

    The surname Bowell

    A Norman place surname, carried by 513 people in the United States.

    2 syllables Soundex B400

    Bowell: #42,308 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Bowell #42,308, 513 people Bowell: #42,308 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#100Jimenez Bowell #42,308, 513 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Bowell is more common than 73.9% of them.

    Origin

    Norman origin

    Habitational surname from Norman Bouelles, a commune in present-day Seine-Maritime, France.

    Bowell is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.

    One of 128 Norman surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 513 people named Bowell in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 601,843 Americans. That is up 1.6% since 2000, when the Census counted 505.

    #42,308
    rank among US surnames
    513
    people in 2010
    0.2
    per 100,000 Americans
    +1.6%
    change since 2000 (was #40,761)

    Who is named Bowell

    Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

    83% of people named Bowell identified as white (not Hispanic), 9.0% as Black (not Hispanic) and 4.5% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

    • White (not Hispanic) 83%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 9.0%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 4.5%
    • Two or more races 2.3%
    The Census suppresses very small shares to protect privacy; Asian & Pacific Islander, Native American are not shown.

    Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

    Famous Bowells

    2 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Mackenzie Bowell
      5th Prime Minister of Canada (1823-1917)
    • Edward L. G. Bowell
      American astronomer (1943–2023)

    Notable Bowells come mostly from Canada (1) and the United States (1).

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Surnames that sound like Bowell

    Bowell has the Soundex code B400, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code B400.

    Other Norman surnames

    All 128 Norman surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Bowell come from?
    Habitational surname from Norman Bouelles, a commune in present-day Seine-Maritime, France.
    How common is the surname Bowell?
    513 people in the United States had the surname Bowell in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 601,843 Americans. It ranked 42,308th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Bowell?
    In the 2010 Census, 83% of people named Bowell identified as white (not Hispanic), and 9.0% as Black (not Hispanic).
    Who is the most famous person named Bowell?
    Mackenzie Bowell, 5th Prime Minister of Canada (1823-1917), followed by Edward L. G. Bowell.
    Where is the surname Bowell most common?
    Wikidata records people named Bowell in Canada and the United States.
    What type of surname is Bowell?
    Bowell is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
    Is the surname Bowell getting more or less common?
    More common. 505 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 513 in 2010, up 1.6%.