# Polk (surname)

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

A surname.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | not recorded |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 27,094 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,296 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 11,395 people |
| Change since 2000 | +6.5% (25,438 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

* As a Scottish surname, shortened from Pollock. * As a Upper Sorbian surname Półk, Pólk, probably shortened from a personal name based on Proto-Slavic *plъkъ (“army, crowd”), see Polka. * As an East German surname of Slavic origin, variant of Polke, itself from a Silesian form of Polish Bolesław.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Polk 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) | 45% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 48% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 2.4% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.7% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.1% |
| Two or more races | 2.5% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Polk in the United States.

## People named Polk

- Oscar Polk, American actor (1899-1949)
- Amanda Polk, American rower
- George Polk, American journalist
- Charles Polk Jr., American politician (1788-1857)
- Albert Fawcett Polk, American politician (1869-1955)
- Brigid Berlin, American actress and artist (1939-2020)

## Similar surnames

Pollak, Polak, Polack, Polsky, Pollock, Pollack, Palacio, Pyles, Place, Plaza, Pelaez, Paulk.

## 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.