# Hamilton (surname)

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

A Scottish surname from Old English.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 201,746 |
| US rank (2010) | 119 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 1,530 people |
| Change since 2000 | +3.8% (194,331 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈhæməltən/, 3 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

From Old English *Hameldūne, from hamel (“blunt, flat-topped”) + dūne (“hill”). The Scottish surname is from the place in Leicestershire. The dollar-bill sense is from the portrait of Alexander Hamilton featured on it.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Hamilton 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) | 70% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 24% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.5% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.5% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.8% |
| Two or more races | 2.3% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Hamilton in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Germany and Croatia.

## People named Hamilton

- Alexander Hamilton, American Founding Father and statesman (1755/1757–1804)
- Margaret Hamilton, American mathematician and designer of embedded computer systems (1936–2026)
- Linda Hamilton, American actress
- Hamilton Smith, American microbiologist (1931–2025)
- George Hamilton, American film and television actor
- Margaret Hamilton, American film character actress (1902–1985)
- Bethany Hamilton, American surfer (born 1990)
- Richard Hamilton, American basketball player (born 1978)
- Alice Hamilton, American physician and toxicologist (1869–1970)
- Scott Hamilton, American figure skater
- W. D. Hamilton, British evolutionary biologist (1936–2000)
- Edith Hamilton, American teacher and writer (1867–1963)

and 95 more on Wikidata.

## Similar surnames

Hamlett, Hamlet.

## 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.