# Sween (surname)

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

A surname from Scottish Gaelic.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Origin | Scottish Gaelic |
| Type | not recorded |
| People in the US (2010 Census) | 528 |
| US rank (2010) | 41,234 of 162,253 |
| How often | about 1 in every 584,745 people |
| Change since 2000 | -5.0% (556 in 2000) |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Variant spellings | none recorded |

## Etymology

* As an Irish and Scottish Gaelic surname, reduced form of McSween. * As a Norwegian surname, variant of Sveen, from Old Norse svíð (“land cleared by burning”), from svíða (“to burn”).

## Who carries it

Share of people named Sween 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) | 90% |
| Black (not Hispanic) | 7.8% |
| Hispanic or Latino (any race) | 0.9% |
| Two or more races | 0.9% |

## Similar surnames

Sweeney, Swan, Sweeny, Skeen, Sheen, Snow, Sheehan, Swain, Sun, Shin, Shen, Swann.

## 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.