Tate

surname · Latin script

Meaning: from the Old English personal name Tata, of uncertain origin and meaning, perhaps a child’s word

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/teɪt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Tate is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • USUnited States1 in 4.7K(measured from records)
  • NZNew Zealand≈1 in 5.3K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 5.5K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

71,058 people, 2010

Sources
512 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

1 in 4.7K (inferred from the name graph)

United States

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

from the Old English personal name Tata, of uncertain origin and meaning, perhaps a child’s word.

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Tate counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Tate is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#42571,0581 in 4.7K71KTate512
GB United Kingdom#544≈12,000 est.≈1 in 5.5K7Tate237
IT Italy—≈5,200 est.≈1 in 12K—Tate22
CA Canada#769≈4,900 est.≈1 in 7.7K26Tate167
AU Australia#665≈3,800 est.≈1 in 6.8K21Tate171
NZ New Zealand#478≈920 est.≈1 in 5.3K38Tate89
IE Ireland#560≈890 est.≈1 in 5.8K—Tate44

71,058 people counted by Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010, 2010. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Tate is also recorded as 4 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish surname4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico

    Languages: Spanish, Italian

    Also written Tatè, Taté

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Tatè, Taté

  • French surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, United Kingdom, Gabon

    Also written Taté, Tâte, Tâté

  • Portuguese surname5 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, Portugal

    Also written Taţè, Tatê, Taté, Táté

84 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Tate is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, from OE *Tāt, strong form of Tāta, with diminutive -el; first attested Uluric Tates c1095 Bury (Sf)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, short form of various cpd names with the obscure first element tat, or else a nursery formation. This surname is widespread and common; the chief areas of con¬ centration are Yorks, and Northumb.

    as a nameA dictionary of surnames

  • In English, Of video games, a vertical mode.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In English, Old English; from Tate’s homestead.

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In English, Old Norse: jolly, cheerful.

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Notable people with this name(measured from records)

16001700180019002000Nahum Tate, b. 1652Allen Tate, b. 1899John Tate, b. 1925Sharon Tate, b. 1943Jeffrey Tate, b. 1943Catherine Tate, b. 1969Larenz Tate, b. 1975Tanya Tate, b. 1979Andrew Tate, b. 1986Miesha Tate, b. 1986
  • Nahum Tateb. 1652IEAnglo-Irish poet and playwright (1652–1715)
  • Allen Tateb. 1899USAmerican poet, essayist and social commentator (1899–1979)
  • John Tateb. 1925USAmerican mathematician (1925-2019)
  • Sharon Tateb. 1943USAmerican actress and model (1943–1969)
  • Jeffrey Tateb. 1943GBBritish conductor (1943–2017)
  • Catherine Tateb. 1969GBEnglish comedian, actress and writer
  • Larenz Tateb. 1975USAmerican actor
  • Tanya Tateb. 1979GBBritish pornographic actress
  • Andrew Tateb. 1986USAmerican-British businessman, former kickboxer, dating coach and manosphere influencer
  • Miesha Tateb. 1986USAmerican mixed martial artist

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

How to address them(machine-generated)

FormalDear Tate,
InformalHello,

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 65 sources across 33 countries.

Official registers attesting Tate
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201071K#467
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202068K#479
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200067K#440

Reference works 5

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • Ethiopian name tokens (GitHub lehagere/ethiopian-names, 40/60 condominium list)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Tate mean, and where does it come from?
from the Old English personal name Tata, of uncertain origin and meaning, perhaps a child’s word. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
In which country does Tate have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 71 thousand people named Tate, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tate.
Where is Tate most common?
Tate is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 4.7 thousand people carrying it.
How common is the name Tate?
In the United States, the national register counted 71,058 people named Tate in 2010, about 1 in 4.7 thousand residents.
How common is Tate compared with other names?
In the United States, Tate is the 425th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
How do you pronounce Tate?
A machine transcription gives /teɪt/ (IPA) for English.

What do you want to know about Tate?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

Please leave out anyone's personal details (see Privacy).

Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/tate

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Tate” — the 425th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Tate parses inside a full name →