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Name Lineage

    The surname Kowal

    A Polish occupational surname, carried by 4,337 people in the United States.

    2 syllables Soundex K400

    Kowal: #7,658 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer Kowal #7,658, 4,337 people Kowal: #7,658 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Kowal #7,658, 4,337 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Kowal is more common than 95.3% of them.

    Origin

    Polish origin

    From Polish kowal (“smith”).

    Kowal is an occupational surname: named after the work an ancestor did.

    One of 304 Polish surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 4,337 people named Kowal in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 71,189 Americans. That is up 1.1% since 2000, when the Census counted 4,290.

    #7,658
    rank among US surnames
    4,337
    people in 2010
    1.5
    per 100,000 Americans
    +1.1%
    change since 2000 (was #7,173)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #7,650McGuinness4,34271,107
    #7,652Lent4,34171,123
    #7,655Gober4,33971,156
    #7,658Kowal4,33771,189
    #7,660Hartford4,33671,205
    #7,662Desjardins4,33571,222
    #7,663Gillman4,33471,238

    Who is named Kowal

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

    96% of people named Kowal identified as white (not Hispanic), 2.0% as Hispanic or Latino (any race) and 1.2% as two or more races.

    • White (not Hispanic) 96%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.0%
    • Two or more races 1.2%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.7%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 0.3%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.1%

    Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Variant spellings

    Surnames that sound like Kowal

    Kowal has the Soundex code K400, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code K400.

    Other Polish surnames

    All 304 Polish surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Kowal come from?
    From Polish kowal (“smith”).
    How common is the surname Kowal?
    4,337 people in the United States had the surname Kowal in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 71,189 Americans. It ranked 7,658th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Kowal?
    In the 2010 Census, 96% of people named Kowal identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.0% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
    What type of surname is Kowal?
    Kowal is an occupational surname, named after the work an ancestor did.
    Is the surname Kowal getting more or less common?
    More common. 4,290 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 4,337 in 2010, up 1.1%.
    What are other spellings of Kowal?
    Koval and Kowall.