Howells
surname · Latin script
Meaning: from Howell; cited as a common Welsh surname without -s
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈhaʊəɫz/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Howells is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.
- USUnited States1 in 112K(measured from records)
- FIFinland1 in 265K
- DKDenmark1 in 345K
carrying the name, as counted by each country's national register. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 9 (measured from records)
- 1 in 112K (inferred from the name graph)
2,961 people, 2010
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
United States
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Howell; cited as a common Welsh surname without -s
Sources 1
- Welsh Surnames
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Howells 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.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | 2,961 | 1 in 112K | 3K | Howells | 7 |
| ES Spain | 83 | 1 in 603K | 83 | — | — |
| AR Argentina | 24 | 1 in 1.9M | 24 | — | — |
| FI Finland | 21 | 1 in 265K | 21 | — | — |
| DK Denmark | 17 | 1 in 345K | 17 | — | — |
| CR Costa Rica | 12 | 1 in 425K | 12 | — | — |
| NO Norway | 12 | 1 in 456K | 12 | — | — |
2,961 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; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal); RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names; SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population). 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 recorded senses(measured from records)
Howells is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
from Howell, with English patronymic -s.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A surname transferred from the given name.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, “Son of Howell”.
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
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)
- William Dean Howellsb. 1837USAmerican author, critic, and playwright (1837–1920)
- John Mead Howellsb. 1868USAmerican architect (1868–1959)
- Herbert Howellsb. 1892GBEnglish composer, organist, and teacher (1892–1983)
- William White Howellsb. 1908USAmerican anthropologist (1908-2005)
- Ursula Howellsb. 1922GBEnglish actress (1922–2005)
- Anne Howellsb. 1941GBBritish operatic mezzo-soprano (born 1941)
- Kim Howellsb. 1946GBBritish politician (born 1946)
- David Howellsb. 1967GBprofessional footballer (born 1967)
- Danny Howellsb. 1970GBBritish musician
- Sarah Howellsb. 2000GBBritish singer-songwriter and trance vocalist
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)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 22 sources across 12 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3K | #10,772 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 2.9K | #10,638 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 2.8K | #10,363 |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 83 | #31,599 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 83 | #31,311 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 24 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 21 | #41,946 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 17 | #27,057 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 12 | #53,761 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 12 | #4,803 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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)
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 Howells mean, and where does it come from?
- from Howell; cited as a common Welsh surname without -s Recorded by Welsh Surnames.
- How do you pronounce Howells?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈhaʊəɫz/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Howells?
- In the etymology graph, Howell is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Howells have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 3.0 thousand people named Howells, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled howells.
- Where is Howells most common?
- Howells is densest in the United States, where the national register counts about 1 in 112 thousand people carrying it.
- How common is the name Howells?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,961 people named Howells in 2010, about 1 in 112 thousand residents.
What do you want to know about Howells?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/howellsThe 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, “Howells”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.