How common is the surname First?

1,255 people in the United States had the surname First in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 246,012 Americans. It ranked 20,971st of 162,253 surnames.

Is the surname First getting more or less common?

Less common. 1,626 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 1,255 in 2010, down 23%.

The surname First

A Yiddish surname, carried by 1,255 people in the United States.

1 syllable Soundex F623

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). First is more common than 87.1% of them.

Origin

Yiddish origin

* 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.

One of 31 Yiddish surnames on this site.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 1,255 people named First in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 246,012 Americans. That is down 23% since 2000, when the Census counted 1,626.

#20,971

rank among US surnames

1,255

people in 2010

0.4

per 100,000 Americans

-22.8%

change since 2000 (was #16,314)

Who is named First

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

86% of people named First identified as white (not Hispanic), 7.7% as Black (not Hispanic) and 3.4% as American Indian and Alaska Native.

White (not Hispanic) 86%
Black (not Hispanic) 7.7%
American Indian and Alaska Native 3.4%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.1%

The Census suppresses very small shares to protect privacy; Asian & Pacific Islander, Multiracial are not shown.

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like First

First has the Soundex code F623, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code F623.

Other Yiddish surnames

All 31 Yiddish surnames

Questions

Where does the surname First come from?: * 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.
How common is the surname First?: 1,255 people in the United States had the surname First in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 246,012 Americans. It ranked 20,971st of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname First?: In the 2010 Census, 86% of people named First identified as white (not Hispanic), and 7.7% as Black (not Hispanic).
Is the surname First getting more or less common?: Less common. 1,626 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 1,255 in 2010, down 23%.