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Name Lineage

    The surname Main

    A surname, carried by 12,776 people in the United States.

    1 syllable Soundex M500

    Main: #2,824 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Main #2,824, 12,776 people Main: #2,824 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Main #2,824, 12,776 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Main is more common than 98.3% of them.

    Origin

    * As a Scottish surname, reduced from the North Germanic name Magnus. Also from the adjective main. * As a Scottish, English, French and Norman surname, from personal names derived from Proto-West Germanic *magan (“to be able”), similar to Mein. * As a Scottish, English and Norman surname, from the French province of Maine. Compare Mansell. * As a Scottish, English, and Norman surname, from the Anglo-Norman adjective maine (“great, large”), from Old French magne. * As a Scottish, English, Norman and French surname, from the noun main (“hand”).

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 12,776 people named Main in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 24,166 Americans. That is up 1.1% since 2000, when the Census counted 12,631.

    #2,824
    rank among US surnames
    12,776
    people in 2010
    4.3
    per 100,000 Americans
    +1.1%
    change since 2000 (was #2,629)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #2,815Ragland12,81624,091
    #2,816Aiken12,81224,098
    #2,817Caron12,81024,102
    #2,818Snodgrass12,80624,109
    #2,819Gaffney12,80524,111
    #2,820Babb12,79424,132
    #2,821Denney12,79224,136

    Who is named Main

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

    92% of people named Main identified as white (not Hispanic), 2.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race) and 1.8% as two or more races.

    • White (not Hispanic) 92%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.8%
    • Two or more races 1.8%
    • Asian and Pacific Islander 1.5%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 1.3%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 0.7%

    Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

    Famous Mains

    3 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Laura Main
      British actress, born 1981
    • Barbara York Main
      Australian arachnologist (1929-2019)
    • Robert Main
      British astronomer, 1808–1878

    Notable Mains come mostly from the United Kingdom (1), Australia (1) and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1).

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Surnames that sound like Main

    Main has the Soundex code M500, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code M500.

    Questions

    Where does the surname Main come from?
    * As a Scottish surname, reduced from the North Germanic name Magnus. Also from the adjective main. * As a Scottish, English, French and Norman surname, from personal names derived from Proto-West Germanic *magan (“to be able”), similar to Mein. * As a Scottish, English and Norman surname, from…
    How common is the surname Main?
    12,776 people in the United States had the surname Main in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 24,166 Americans. It ranked 2,824th of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Main?
    In the 2010 Census, 92% of people named Main identified as white (not Hispanic), and 2.8% as Hispanic or Latino (any race).
    Who is the most famous person named Main?
    Laura Main, British actress, followed by Barbara York Main.
    Where is the surname Main most common?
    Wikidata records people named Main in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
    Is the surname Main getting more or less common?
    More common. 12,631 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 12,776 in 2010, up 1.1%.