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The surnameJones

A patronymic surname, the 5th most common in the United States.

Pronounced /d͡ʒoʊnz/ 1 syllable Soundex J520 Also a first name

Jones: #5 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Jones #5, 1,425,470 people Jones: #5 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Jones #5, 1,425,470 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Jones is more common than 99.9% of them.

Origin

Genitive of John.

Jones is a patronymic surname: formed from a father’s (or ancestor’s) given name.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 1,425,470 people named Jones in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 217 Americans. That is up 4.6% since 2000, when the Census counted 1,362,755.

#5
rank among US surnames
1,425,470
people in 2010
483
per 100,000 Americans
+4.6%
change since 2000 (was #5)
RankSurnamePeople1 in
#2Johnson1,932,812160
#3Williams1,625,252190
#4Brown1,437,026215
#5Jones1,425,470217
#6Garcia1,166,120265
#7Miller1,161,437266

Who is named Jones

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

55% of people named Jones identified as white (not Hispanic), 38% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.6% as two or more races.

  • White (not Hispanic) 55%
  • Black (not Hispanic) 38%
  • Two or more races 2.6%
  • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.3%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native 1.0%
  • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.4%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Joness

402 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

  • Tommy Lee Jones
    American actor and film director (born 1946)
  • Norah Jones
    American musician (born 1979)
  • Quincy Jones
    American record producer and composer (1933–2024)
  • Felicity Jones
    British actress (born 1983)
  • Jennifer Jones
    American actress (1919–2009)
  • James Earl Jones
    American actor (1931–2024)
  • William Jones
    Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India (1746–1794)
  • Shirley Jones
    American singer and actress, born 1934
  • Rashida Jones
    American actress, writer, and producer (born 1976)
  • Jim Jones
    American cult leader (1931–1978)
  • Marion Jones
    American athlete, born 1975
  • January Jones
    American actress (born 1978)

Notable Joness come mostly from the United States (333), the United Kingdom (31) and Australia (16).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Jones

Jones has the Soundex code J520, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code J520.

Questions

Where does the surname Jones come from?
Genitive of John.
How common is the surname Jones?
1,425,470 people in the United States had the surname Jones in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 217 Americans. It ranked 5th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Jones?
In the 2010 Census, 55% of people named Jones identified as white (not Hispanic), and 38% as Black (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Jones?
Tommy Lee Jones, American actor and film director (born 1946), followed by Norah Jones.