How common is the surname Polk?

27,094 people in the United States had the surname Polk in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 11,395 Americans. It ranked 1,296th of 162,253 surnames.

Who is the most famous person named Polk?

Oscar Polk, American actor (1899-1949), followed by Amanda Polk.

Where is the surname Polk most common?

Wikidata records people named Polk in the United States.

Is the surname Polk getting more or less common?

More common. 25,438 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 27,094 in 2010, up 6.5%.

The surname Polk

A surname, carried by 27,094 people in the United States.

1 syllable Soundex P420

Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Polk is more common than 99.2% of them.

Origin

* 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.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 27,094 people named Polk in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 11,395 Americans. That is up 6.5% since 2000, when the Census counted 25,438.

#1,296

rank among US surnames

27,094

people in 2010

9.2

per 100,000 Americans

+6.5%

change since 2000 (was #1,270)

Rank	Surname	People	1 in
#1,287	Paredes	27,274	11,320
#1,288	Delatorre	27,265	11,324
#1,289	Langley	27,252	11,329
#1,290	Sinclair	27,243	11,333
#1,291	Dwyer	27,240	11,334
#1,292	Shirley	27,224	11,341
#1,293	Muller	27,216	11,344

Who is named Polk

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

48% of people named Polk identified as Black (not Hispanic), 45% as white (not Hispanic) and 2.5% as two or more races.

Black (not Hispanic) 48%
White (not Hispanic) 45%
Two or more races 2.5%
Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.4%
American Indian and Alaska Native 1.1%
Asian and Pacific Islander 0.7%

Compare: most common surnames among Black Americans.

Famous Polks

6 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

Oscar Polk
American actor (1899-1949)
Amanda Polk
American rower, born 1986
George Polk
American journalist, 1913–1948
Charles Polk Jr.
American politician (1788-1857)
Albert Fawcett Polk
American politician (1869-1955)
Brigid Berlin
American actress and artist (1939-2020)

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Polk

Polk has the Soundex code P420, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code P420.

Questions

Where does the surname Polk come from?: * 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.
How common is the surname Polk?: 27,094 people in the United States had the surname Polk in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 11,395 Americans. It ranked 1,296th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Polk?: In the 2010 Census, 48% of people named Polk identified as Black (not Hispanic), and 45% as white (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Polk?: Oscar Polk, American actor (1899-1949), followed by Amanda Polk.
Where is the surname Polk most common?: Wikidata records people named Polk in the United States.
Is the surname Polk getting more or less common?: More common. 25,438 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 27,094 in 2010, up 6.5%.