# Sutherland (surname)

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

A habitational surname from Old English.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | not recorded |
| Type | place, taken from where an ancestor lived or came from |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 29,585 |
| US rank (2010) | 1,195 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 10,436 people |
| Change since 2000 | +4.1% (28,417 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | /ˈsʌðə(ɹ)lənd/, 3 syllables |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

The name of the county is from Old Norse Suðrland, from suðr (“south”) + land (“land”), named from the point of view of Orkney and Shetland. In some cases, the surname may represent the equivalent formation in Old English.

## Who carries it

Share of people named Sutherland 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) | 83% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 9.9% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 3.2% |
| Asian and Pacific Islander | 0.7% |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.1% |
| Two or more races | 1.6% |

## Where

Wikidata records people named Sutherland in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

## People named Sutherland

- Kiefer Sutherland, British-Canadian actor (born 1966)
- Earl Wilbur Sutherland, Jr., American pharmacologist (1915–1974)
- Joan Sutherland, Australian soprano (1926-2010)
- Ivan Sutherland, American computer scientist and Internet pioneer
- Kristine Sutherland, American actress
- Alyssa Sutherland, Australian actress and model
- A. Edward Sutherland, actor, film director (1895-1973)
- Edwin Sutherland, American criminologist (1883–1950)
- Catherine Sutherland, Australian actress
- George Sutherland, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, United States Senator, member of the United S
- Jane Sutherland, Australian artist (1853-1928)
- Sarah Sutherland, American actress

and 10 more on Wikidata.

## Similar surnames

Southerland, Sutherlin, Sterling, Starling, Stirling, Strohl, Satterlee, Straley, Soderlund, Strahl, Satterly.

## 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.