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The surname Whitehead

A surname, carried by 44,373 people in the United States.

2 syllables Soundex W330

Whitehead: #776 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#10Martinez#100Jimenez#10,001Dubon Whitehead #776, 44,373 people Whitehead: #776 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez Whitehead #776, 44,373 people
Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Whitehead is more common than 99.5% of them.

Origin

From white + head.

Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How common it is

2010 US Census

There were 44,373 people named Whitehead in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 6,958 Americans. That is up 2.5% since 2000, when the Census counted 43,310.

#776
rank among US surnames
44,373
people in 2010
15
per 100,000 Americans
+2.5%
change since 2000 (was #721)
RankSurnamePeople1 in
#767Jacobson44,8086,890
#768Lester44,7846,894
#769Knox44,7426,901
#770Bullock44,7406,901
#771Kerr44,7116,905
#772Leach44,5816,925
#773Meadows44,5006,938

Who is named Whitehead

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

70% of people named Whitehead identified as white (not Hispanic), 24% as Black (not Hispanic) and 2.2% as two or more races.

  • White (not Hispanic) 70%
  • Black (not Hispanic) 24%
  • Two or more races 2.2%
  • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 2.1%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native 0.7%
  • Asian and Pacific Islander 0.4%

Compare: most common surnames among white Americans.

Famous Whiteheads

12 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

  • Colson Whitehead
    American novelist (born 1969)
  • Fionn Whitehead
    British actor, born 1997
  • Isaiah Whitehead
    American basketball player (born 1995)
  • Dariq Whitehead
    American basketball player (born 2004)
  • Paxton Whitehead
    British actor (1937–2023)
  • Oothout Zabriskie Whitehead
    American actor (1911-1998)
  • John Whitehead
    American singer (1948–2004)
  • Jordan Whitehead
    American football player (born 1997)
  • George W. Whitehead
    American mathematician (1918-2004)
  • Henry S. Whitehead
    American writer (1882–1932)
  • Christian Whitehead
    Australian video game programmer, born 1992
  • Amil
    American rapper, born 1978

Notable Whiteheads come mostly from the United States (9), the United Kingdom (2) and Australia (1).

Spellings and sound-alikes

Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

Surnames that sound like Whitehead

Whitehead has the Soundex code W330, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code W330.

Questions

Where does the surname Whitehead come from?
From white + head.
How common is the surname Whitehead?
44,373 people in the United States had the surname Whitehead in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 6,958 Americans. It ranked 776th of 162,253 surnames.
What ethnicity is the surname Whitehead?
In the 2010 Census, 70% of people named Whitehead identified as white (not Hispanic), and 24% as Black (not Hispanic).
Who is the most famous person named Whitehead?
Colson Whitehead, American novelist (born 1969), followed by Fionn Whitehead.
Where is the surname Whitehead most common?
Wikidata records people named Whitehead in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Is the surname Whitehead getting more or less common?
More common. 43,310 people carried it in the 2000 Census and 44,373 in 2010, up 2.5%.