Nesmith
surname · Latin script
Meaning: occupational name for a maker of knives or of nails, from Middle English knyf ‘knife’ or nayl ‘nail’ + smith (see Smith)
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 2 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/ˈnɛzmɪθ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Nesmith is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Grenada it is the 45th most common surname.
- USUnited States1 in 47K(measured from records)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 63K
- GHGhana≈1 in 11K
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)
- Record sources
- 340 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 11K (inferred from the name graph)
7,097 people, 2010
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Ghana, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin
(measured from records)occupational name for a maker of knives or of nails, from Middle English knyf ‘knife’ or nayl ‘nail’ + smith (see Smith).
Cited for this meaning 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Nesmith 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 | — | 7,097 | 1 in 47K | 7.1K | Nesmith | 340 |
| GH Ghana | #830 | ≈2,600 est. | ≈1 in 11K | — | Nesmith | 4 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈1,100 est. | ≈1 in 63K | 21 | Nesmith | 39 |
| EG Egypt | — | ≈890 est. | ≈1 in 116K | — | Nesmith | 3 |
| IT Italy | — | ≈680 est. | ≈1 in 92K | — | Nesmith | 6 |
| PT Portugal | — | ≈360 est. | ≈1 in 28K | — | Nesmith | 1 |
| IE Ireland | — | ≈110 est. | ≈1 in 49K | — | Nesmith | 2 |
| GD Grenada | #45 | — | — | — | Nesmith | 1 |
7,097 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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register). 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)Nesmith is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A surname from Middle English [in turn originating as an occupation].
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)- John Nesmithb. 1793USAmerican businessman and politician (1793-1869)
- James Nesmithb. 1820USAmerican politician
- Ottola Nesmithb. 1889USactress (1889-1972)
- Bette Nesmith Grahamb. 1924USInventor, businesswoman (1924–1980)
- Michael Nesmithb. 1942USAmerican musician, songwriter, actor (1942–2021)
- Bruce Nesmithb. 1959USAmerican game designer
- Sharon Nesmithb. 1970GBBritish Army officer
- Aaron Nesmithb. 1999USAmerican basketball player (born 1999)
- Dean NesmithUSAmerican football player and athletic trainer
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)8 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 2 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 7.1K | #4,955 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 6.9K | #4,698 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 6.6K | #5,122 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 21 | #87,652 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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 Nesmith mean, and where does it come from?
- occupational name for a maker of knives or of nails, from Middle English knyf ‘knife’ or nayl ‘nail’ + smith (see Smith). Recorded by Dictionary of American Family Names.
- How do you pronounce Nesmith?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈnɛzmɪθ/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Nesmith have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 7.1 thousand people named Nesmith, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled nesmith.
- How common is the name Nesmith?
- In the United States, the national register counted 7,097 people named Nesmith in 2010, about 1 in 47 thousand residents.
- How common is Nesmith compared with other names?
- In Grenada, Nesmith is the 45th most common surname of 3,427 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Nesmith?
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/nesmithThe 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, “Nesmith” — the 45th most common surname in Grenada. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.