# First (surname)

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

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Yiddish |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 1,255 |
| US rank (2010) | 20,971 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 246,012 people |
| Change since 2000 | -22.8% (1,626 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

* As a German surname, variant of Fürst, Furst. * As a Jewish surname, from Yiddish פֿירשט (firsht, “prince”), a rendition of the above. * As a Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, from the noun firšt (“prince”), a loanword from German and thus related to the above.

## Who carries it

Share of people named First 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) | 86% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 7.7% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.1% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 3.4% |

## Similar surnames

Frost, Forest, Furst, Forst, Fuerst, Firestone, Forrest, Forrester, Forsythe, Forster, Forsyth, Frausto.

## 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.