# Sherwood (surname)

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

An English habitational surname from Old English derived from Sherwood Forest.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | not recorded |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 21,384 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,685 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 14,438 people |
| Change since 2000 | +1.8% (20,998 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈʃɝwʊd/, 2 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

From Old English scīr + wudu (“forest”). The first element is either the ancestor of the modern noun shire, or an adjective meaning "bright" (ancestor to the modern word sheer), depending on the specific placename (listed below).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Sherwood 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) | 91% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 2.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 3.1% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.6% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.1% |
| Two or more races | 1.6% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Sherwood in the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

## People named Sherwood

- Robert E. Sherwood, American writer (1896–1955)
- Billy Sherwood, American musician
- Grace Sherwood, American woman, convicted and posthumously pardoned for witchcraft
- Mary Martha Sherwood, British children's author
- Thomas Kilgore Sherwood, American chemical engineer (1903–1976)
- Brad Sherwood, American comedian
- Ben Sherwood, American author, journalist, and entrepreneur
- Rosina Emmet Sherwood, American painter (1854–1948)
- Don Sherwood, American politician (born 1941)
- Kate Brownlee Sherwood, American writer (1841–1914)

## Similar surnames

Sherrod, Sword, Sheard, Short, Serrato, Seward, Sorto, Surratt, Swart, Shortt, Swihart, Siewert.

## 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.