# Lord (surname)

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

An English surname transferred from the nickname, originally a nickname for someone who either acted as if he were a lord or had worked in a lord's household.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | English |
| Type | nickname, from a description or nickname of an ancestor |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 23,405 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,535 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 13,191 people |
| Change since 2000 | +0.8% (23,221 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /lɔɹd/, 1 syllable |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

See lord. In reference to the God of the Jewish Tanakh and Christian Bible, originally a translation (attested from the late Old English form hlāford) of the Vulgate Latin Dominus (“master of a house; lord”), translating the New Testament and the Septuagint's Ancient Greek ὁ κύριος or Κύριος (ó kýrios, "the supreme one; Lord, Kyrios"), both in reference to Hebrew אֲדֹנָי (ʾdny, "my lord; my Lord, Adonai") from אדון (ʾdwn, "lord, patron; Lord") + י- (-y, "my"), cognate with Phoenician 𐤀𐤃𐤍 (ʾdn, "lord; Lord, Adon"). Adonai appears in the Tanakh both directly and as a euphemism read aloud during occurrences of the Tetragrammaton יהוה (YHWH, "I Am that I Am; Jehovah"). See the usage notes below. Displaced the earlier term Drighten.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Lord 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) | 88% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 5.4% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 3.1% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.9% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 0.6% |
| Two or more races | 1.9% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Lord in the United States, the United Kingdom and Barbados.

## People named Lord

- Jack Lord, American actor (1920-1998)
- Peter Lord, British animator
- Walter Lord, American author (1917–2002)
- Marjorie Lord, actress from the United States (1918–2015)
- Albert Lord, American academic (1912-1991)
- William Paine Lord, American politician (1838-1911)
- Karen Lord, Barbadian novelist and sociologist of religion
- Phillips Lord, American actor (1902-1975)
- Pauline Lord, American actress (1890-1950)

## Similar surnames

Loredo, Loreto, Lard, Laird, Lirette, Leard.

## 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.