Small
surname · Latin script
Meaning: (i) see Smale; (ii) person from Smeghel, a lost place in Sussex, ‘burrow’
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/smɔl/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Small is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In Jamaica it is the 55th most common surname.
- JMJamaica≈1 in 1.8K(inferred from the name graph)
- GHGhana≈1 in 3.1K
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 4K
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)
- Sources
- 478 (measured from records)
- 1 in 346 (inferred from the name graph)
40,212 people, 2010
Highest-authority source
St. Vincent & Grenadines
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
(i) see Smale; (ii) person from Smeghel, a lost place in Sussex, ‘burrow’
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 7 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Small 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 | #628 | 40,212 | 1 in 8.3K | 46K | Small | 478 |
| GB United Kingdom | #454 | ≈15,000 est. | ≈1 in 4.4K | 13K | Small | 249 |
| GH Ghana | #233 | ≈9,500 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Small | 17 |
| ZA South Africa | #943 | ≈6,200 est. | ≈1 in 9K | — | Small | 64 |
| CA Canada | #614 | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 6.7K | — | Small | 182 |
| JM Jamaica | #55 | ≈1,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | — | Small | 26 |
| NZ New Zealand | #357 | ≈1,200 est. | ≈1 in 4K | — | Small | 96 |
| GY Guyana | — | 640 | 1 in 1.2K | 640 | — | 12 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | — | 293 | 1 in 346 | 293 | — | 6 |
40,212 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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025; Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025). 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)
Small 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 a medieval nickname for a short or thin person
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
In English, diminutive stature, from ME swai thin, narrow, small (OE smcel). Vars.: Smale (Cornwall), Smaile (Scotland); Smeal(l). Cogns.: Ger.: Schmal(l), Schmahl. Low Ger.: Smal. Flem., Du.: Smal(le), (De) Smaele. Patrs.: Eng.: Small(e)s, Smales; Smailes (Northumb.), Smiles (Scotland). Low Ger.: Schmeling.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
In English, diminutive stature, from ME smal thin, narrow, small (OE smcel). Vars.: Smale (Cornwall), Smaile (Scotland); Smeal(l). Patrs.; Eng.: Small(e)s, Smales; Smailes (Northumb.), Smiles (Scotland). Low Ger.: Schmeling. Smallen see Spillane
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
In English, Not large or big; insignificant; few in number.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, kalo = wild; to be small, gulongo, mumu, yove bondi-bondi
as a wordVocabulary of the Mende Language
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)
- Albion Woodbury Smallb. 1854USAmerican sociologist (1854-1926)
- John Kunkel Smallb. 1869USAmerican botanist (1869-1938)
- Edward Smallb. 1891USAmerican film producer (1891–1977)
- Michael Smallb. 1939USAmerican composer (1939–2003)
- Mews Smallb. 1942USActress, singer
- Millie Smallb. 1947JMJamaican singer (1947–2020)
- Heather Smallb. 1965GBBritish singer
- Sharon Smallb. 1967GBBritish actress
- Brendon Smallb. 1975USAmerican actor
- Ashley Blueb. 1981USnot in their usual nameAmerican pornographic actress and director (born 1981)
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 42 sources across 27 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 46K | #681 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 45K | #761 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 40K | #861 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 13K | #554 |
| GY Guyana | Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025 | 2025 | 640 | #169 |
| VC St. Vincent & Grenadines | Electoral Office of St Vincent & the Grenadines — Final Voters List (Nov 2025) | 2025 | 293 | #66 |
| GB United Kingdom | A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks & Hodges, 1988) | — | — | — |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
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)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Small mean, and where does it come from?
- (i) see Smale; (ii) person from Smeghel, a lost place in Sussex, ‘burrow’ Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- What are other forms of the name Small?
- In the etymology graph, Schmal and Smalle are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Small?
- A machine transcription gives /smɔl/ (IPA) for English.
- In which country does Small have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 40 thousand people named Small, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled small.
- Where is Small most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Small is densest in St. Vincent & Grenadines — about 1 in 346 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Small?
- In the United States, the national register counted 40,212 people named Small in 2010, about 1 in 8.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Small compared with other names?
- In the United States, Small is the 628th most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Small?
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/smallThe 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, “Small” — the 628th most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.