The surname Hamilton
An English place surname, carried by 201,746 people in the United States.
Pronounced /ˈhæməltən/ 3 syllables Soundex H543 Also a first name
Origin
English origin
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.
Hamilton 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 201,746 people named Hamilton in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 1,530 Americans. That is up 3.8% since 2000, when the Census counted 194,331.
Who is named Hamilton
Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census
70% of people named Hamilton identified as white (not Hispanic), 24% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.5% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
- White (not Hispanic) 70%
- Black (not Hispanic) 24%
- Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.5%
- Two or more races 2.3%
- American Indian and Alaska Native 0.8%
- Asian and Pacific Islander 0.5%
Famous Hamiltons
107 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first
- Alexander HamiltonAmerican Founding Father and statesman (1755/1757–1804)
- Margaret HamiltonAmerican mathematician and designer of embedded computer systems (1936–2026)
- Linda HamiltonAmerican actress, born 1956
- Hamilton SmithAmerican microbiologist (1931–2025)
- George HamiltonAmerican film and television actor, born 1939
- Margaret HamiltonAmerican film character actress (1902–1985)
- Bethany HamiltonAmerican surfer (born 1990)
- Richard HamiltonAmerican basketball player (born 1978)
- Alice HamiltonAmerican physician and toxicologist (1869–1970)
- Scott HamiltonAmerican figure skater, born 1958
- W. D. HamiltonBritish evolutionary biologist (1936–2000)
- Edith HamiltonAmerican teacher and writer (1867–1963)
Notable Hamiltons come mostly from the United States (83), the United Kingdom (11) and Australia (5).
Spellings and sound-alikes
Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling
Hamilton has the Soundex code H543, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code H543.
Other English surnames
Questions
- Where does the surname Hamilton come from?
- 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.
- How common is the surname Hamilton?
- 201,746 people in the United States had the surname Hamilton in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 1,530 Americans. It ranked 119th of 162,253 surnames.
- What ethnicity is the surname Hamilton?
- In the 2010 Census, 70% of people named Hamilton identified as white (not Hispanic), and 24% as Black (not Hispanic).
- Who is the most famous person named Hamilton?
- Alexander Hamilton, American Founding Father and statesman (1755/1757–1804), followed by Margaret Hamilton.
- Where is the surname Hamilton most common?
- Wikidata records people named Hamilton in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia and 3 other countries.
- How do you pronounce Hamilton?
- Hamilton is /ˈhæməltən/, 3 syllables.
- What type of surname is Hamilton?
- Hamilton is a place surname, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.
- Is the surname Hamilton getting more or less common?
- More common. 194,331 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 201,746 in 2010, up 3.8%.
- Is Hamilton also a first name?
- Yes. Hamilton is used as a first name as well as a surname; its first-name page has the meaning and how many babies were given it.