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The surname Fenton

An English place surname, carried by 16,017 people in the United States.

Pronounced /ˈfɛn.tən/ 2 syllables Soundex F535

Fenton: #2,274 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#10,001Dubon Fenton #2,274, 16,017 people Fenton: #2,274 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Fenton #2,274, 16,017 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Fenton is more common than 98.6% of them.

Origin

English origin

From Middle English Fenton, from Old English fenn (“fen, marsh”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).

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

One of 1,446 English surnames on this site.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 16,017 people named Fenton in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 19,276 Americans. That is up 5.2% since 2000, when the Census counted 15,220.

#2,274
rank among US surnames
16,017
people in 2010
5.4
per 100,000 Americans
+5.2%
change since 2000 (was #2,193)
RankSurnamePeople1 in
#2,265Lyles16,06219,222
#2,266Dias16,04419,244
#2,268McNally16,03919,250
#2,269Schreiber16,03419,256
#2,270Earl16,02719,264
#2,271Berman16,02519,266
#2,272Schaeffer16,02419,268

Who is named Fenton

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

88% of people named Fenton identified as white (not Hispanic), 6.5% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.7% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

  • White (not Hispanic) 88%
  • Black (not Hispanic) 6.5%
  • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.7%
  • Two or more races 1.5%
  • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.7%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.4%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Fentons

6 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

  • Leslie Fenton
    Actor, film director (1902-1978)
  • Mildred Adams Fenton
    American paleontologist (1899-1995)
  • Reuben Fenton
    American politician (1819-1885)
  • Georgia-Mae Fenton
    British artistic gymnast, born 2000
  • Mark Fenton
    American actor (1866–1925)
  • Frank Fenton
    American actor (1906–1957)

Notable Fentons come mostly from the United States (5) and the United Kingdom (1).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Variant spellings

  • Finton

Surnames that sound like Fenton

Fenton has the Soundex code F535, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code F535.

Other English surnames

Questions

Where does the surname Fenton come from?
From Middle English Fenton, from Old English fenn (“fen, marsh”) + tūn (“enclosure; settlement, town”).
How common is the surname Fenton?
16,017 people in the United States had the surname Fenton in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 19,276 Americans. It ranked 2,274th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Fenton?
In the 2010 Census, 88% of people named Fenton identified as white (not Hispanic), and 6.5% as Black (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Fenton?
Leslie Fenton, actor, film director (1902-1978), followed by Mildred Adams Fenton.
Where is the surname Fenton most common?
Wikidata records people named Fenton in the United States and the United Kingdom.
How do you pronounce Fenton?
Fenton is /ˈfɛn.tən/, 2 syllables.
What type of surname is Fenton?
Fenton is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
Is the surname Fenton getting more or less common?
More common. 15,220 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 16,017 in 2010, up 5.2%.
What are other spellings of Fenton?
Finton.