The history of your name

The JONES surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
Total Rank Frequency % Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot) 1,362,755 5 0.505 5,052
United States (1880 census) 320,622 5 0.641 6,412
Change since 1880 +1042133 0 -0.136 -1360
Other Countries
Australia 56,698 2 0.347 3,468
United Kingdom 393,190 2 0.856 8,561
Top States for JONES by Total
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Texas 110,165 8 0.528 5,283
California 86,853 16 0.256 2,564
Florida 78,505 6 0.491 4,912
Georgia 67,932 4 0.830 8,298
North Carolina 66,711 4 0.829 8,288
Top States for JONES by Frequency
State Total Rank in State Frequency % Per million people
Mississippi 32,210 4 1.132 11,323
Alabama 49,244 4 1.107 11,073
Tennessee 55,525 3 0.976 9,760
Arkansas 23,550 4 0.881 8,809
Washington DC 5,034 5 0.880 8,800

Notes

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called JONES live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called JONES represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called JONES in Texas than any other state, but you are more likely to find a JONES by picking someone at random in Mississippi than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of JONES

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Wales

Language of origin: Welsh

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: From name of parent

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the JONES surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the JONES surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of JONES in the USA

Classification Total Percent
White (Caucasian) 786,173 57.69
Black/African American 514,167 37.73
Mixed Race 25,211 1.85
White (Hispanic) 19,624 1.44
Native American/Alaskan 12,810 0.94
Asian/Pacific 4,770 0.35

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the JONES surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of JONES in historical publications

(origin: Heb.) The same as John or Johns, and signifies gracious.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.


JONES. A genitive form of John, through Johnes, common everywhere in England, but superabundant in Wales. Next to John Smith, John Jones is probably the most common combination of names in Britain. As the Eegistrar-general well observes, "the name of John Jones is in Wales a perpetual incognito, and being proclaimed at the cross of a market-town would indicate no one in particular." From the able Pieport of the same functionary (XVI. 1856) we learn that Jones is, for numerousness, second only to Smith ; for while within a given period the nmnber of Smiths registered throughout England, as born, married, or dead, amounted to 33,557, the Joneses in like circumstances were 33,311 — a singularly close approximation. Old Daniel Fenuing, the author of the immortal phrase, " Smith, Jones, Brown, and Eobinson," was therefore quite right as to the order of precedence of the first two names, though the Reg. Gen. puts Brown sixth, and Eobinson eleventh, on the roll of common surnames. The existing number of Joneses is estimated at 51,000 families, or about a quarter of a million of individuals. XVI. Report, p. xxii.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.


Similar names to JONES

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as JONES.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.

Matches are generated automatically by a combination of Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching.

Potential typos for JONES

The following words are slight variants of JONES that are likely to be possible typos or misspellings in written material.