How common is the surname Katz?

31,780 people in the United States had the surname Katz in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 9,715 Americans. It ranked 1,101st of 162,253 surnames.

What ethnicity is the surname Katz?

In the 2010 Census, 95% of people named Katz identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.6% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

Who is the most famous person named Katz?

Omri Katz, American actor, followed by Alex Katz.

Where is the surname Katz most common?

Wikidata records people named Katz in the United States, Israel and Argentina and 2 other countries.

Is the surname Katz getting more or less common?

More common. 30,615 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 31,780 in 2010, up 3.8%.

The surname Katz

A German surname, carried by 31,780 people in the United States.

Pronounced /kæts/ 1 syllable Soundex K320

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Katz is more common than 99.3% of them.

Origin

German origin

As a Jewish name generally explained as Hebrew כ״ץ (Katz), abbreviation of כֹּהֵן צֶדֶק (kohén tzédeq, literally “righteous priest”). However, the name also exists among non-Jewish Germans, where it is derived from German Katze (“cat”, cf. English Catt), from various placenames (Katzenelnbogen, Katzenberg, Katzenstein), or even from a byform of Ketzer (“heretic”). As evidenced by the Dictionary of American family names, several of these names are also found among Jews. Therefore it remains an open question to what extent the interpretation as “righteous priest” is secondary, given that it was a general practice among Ashkenazi Jews to derive or reinterpret names by phono-semantic matching (a prime example being Cohn, principally a German name from Conrad, but popularized among Jews due to the phonetic similarity with the word for “priest” mentioned above).

One of 1,101 German surnames on this site.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 31,780 people named Katz in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 9,715 Americans. That is up 3.8% since 2000, when the Census counted 30,615.

#1,101

rank among US surnames

31,780

people in 2010

per 100,000 Americans

+3.8%

change since 2000 (was #1,045)

Rank	Surname	People	1 in
#1,092	Lutz	32,050	9,633
#1,093	Costello	32,043	9,635
#1,094	Gay	32,025	9,641
#1,095	Guthrie	31,956	9,662
#1,096	Gallardo	31,909	9,676
#1,097	Workman	31,856	9,692
#1,098	McFadden	31,839	9,697

Who is named Katz

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

95% of people named Katz identified as white (not Hispanic), 2.6% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).

White (not Hispanic) 95%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.6%
Two or more races 0.9%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.7%
Black (not Hispanic) 0.4%
American Indian and Alaska Native 0.1%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Katzs

19 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

Omri Katz
American actor, born 1976
Alex Katz
American painter and sculptor (born 1927)
Phil Katz
American software developer, developer of the ZIP file format (1962-2000)
Elihu Katz
American and Israeli sociologist (1926–2021)
Jonathan Katz
American actor and comedian, born 1946
Nick Katz
American mathematician, born 1943
Ross Katz
American film director, born 1971
Steve Katz
American musician, born 1945
Mike Katz
American bodybuilder, born 1944
Robert Katz
American writer and screenwriter (1933–2010)
Ana Katz
Argentinian actor, scriptwriter and director, born 1975
Sky Katz
American actress, rapper and singer, born 2004

Notable Katzs come mostly from the United States (15), Israel (1) and Argentina (1).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Katz

Katz has the Soundex code K320, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code K320.

Other German surnames

All 1,101 German surnames

Questions

Where does the surname Katz come from?: As a Jewish name generally explained as Hebrew כ״ץ (Katz), abbreviation of כֹּהֵן צֶדֶק (kohén tzédeq, literally “righteous priest”). However, the name also exists among non-Jewish Germans, where it is derived from German Katze (“cat”, cf. English Catt), from various placenames (Katzenelnbogen,…
How common is the surname Katz?: 31,780 people in the United States had the surname Katz in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 9,715 Americans. It ranked 1,101st of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Katz?: In the 2010 Census, 95% of people named Katz identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.6% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
Who is the most famous person named Katz?: Omri Katz, American actor, followed by Alex Katz.
Where is the surname Katz most common?: Wikidata records people named Katz in the United States, Israel and Argentina and 2 other countries.
How do you pronounce Katz?: Katz is /kæts/, one syllable.
Is the surname Katz getting more or less common?: More common. 30,615 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 31,780 in 2010, up 3.8%.