Smit
surname · Latin script
Meaning: a surname originating as an occupation, equivalent to Smith in English
(measured from records)Officially recorded in 25 countries · latest register: Census Bureau, 2020
/smɪt/(recorded in a dictionary) English · from Wiktionary
Smit is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the most common surname.
- NLNetherlands1 in 409(measured from records)
- HRCroatia1 in 6.7K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 110as Smith
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Smit itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. Countries with no figure are shown too: flat where a national register lists the name without counting it, hatched where only our records hold it. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #20 (measured from records)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Record sources
- 697 (measured from records)
- 1 in 409 (inferred from the name graph)
2,442,977 named Smith, 2010
of 19M surnames, spellings grouped
recorded for this name
corpus datasets behind its best-documented spelling
strongest: highest-authority source
Netherlands
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts
(measured from records)Locally spelled Smith in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 6 more.
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)a surname originating as an occupation, equivalent to Smith in English
Cited for this meaning 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world
(measured from records)Smit 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 | #1 | 2,442,977as Smith | 1 in 136 | 2.4M | Smith | 697 |
| GB United Kingdom | #1 | ≈610,000 est. | ≈1 in 108 | 11K | Smith | 463 |
| CA Canada | #1 | ≈250,000 est. | ≈1 in 149 | 3 | Smith | 393 |
| EG Egypt | #100 | ≈240,000 est. | ≈1 in 434 | — | Smith | 69 |
| IT Italy | #1 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 291 | 1 | Smith | 141 |
| AU Australia | #1 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 133 | 1 | Smith | 381 |
| BG Bulgaria | #62 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 130 | — | Smith | 66 |
| NL Netherlands | #11 | 42,275 | 1 in 409 | 42K | Smit | 171 |
| IE Ireland | #1 | ≈41,000 est. | ≈1 in 125 | — | Smith | 180 |
| NZ New Zealand | #1 | ≈38,000 est. | ≈1 in 131 | — | Smith | 224 |
2,442,977 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); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007). 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)Smit 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 German, from German Schneider 'tailor'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, Berufsname zu ‚Schmied‘; Dentalvariation d/dt/t. 495 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 2: Graphematik/Phonologie der Familiennamen II, Konsonantismus
In Afrikaans, Cape Dutch occupational surname meaning "smith".
as a wordsanames.co.za — South African surnames
In ang, inflection of smītan:
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Icelandic, infection
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)- Joseph Smitb. 1836NLDutch natural history illustrator (1836-1929)
- Kick Smitb. 1911NLDutch footballer and manager (1911-1974)
- Arie Smitb. 1916NLDutch painter (1916-2016)
- Deidre Hollandb. 1966NLnot in their usual nameDutch pornographic actress
- Mabel Wisse Smitb. 1968NLDutch princess; widow of Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau
- Jan Smitb. 1985NLDutch singer and TV presenter (born 1985)
- Julia Smitb. 1987USAmerican swimmer, Olympic silver medalist, world record-holder
- Monique Smitb. 1989NLDutch television presenter and singer
- Kodi Smit-McPheeb. 1996AUAustralian actor
- Milena Smitb. 1996ESSpanish actress
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)46 registers and reference works attest this spelling, across 25 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 42K | #5 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 4K | #8,012 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 3.2K | #10,186 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 3.1K | #9,754 |
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 615 | #9,661 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 6
- 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
- Hoffman, Polish Surnames: Origins and Meanings (2nd ed., 2012)
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 Smit mean, and where does it come from?
- a surname originating as an occupation, equivalent to Smith in English Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- How do you pronounce Smit?
- It depends on the language: in English /smɪt/ (Wiktionary); in Dutch /smɪt/ (Wiktionary).
- In which country does Smit have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 2.4 million people named Smith, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Smit most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Smit is densest in the Netherlands — about 1 in 409 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Smit?
- In the Netherlands, the national register counted 42,275 people named Smit in 2007, about 1 in 409 residents.
- How common is Smit compared with other names?
- In the United States, Smit is the most common surname of 6,282,806 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Smit?
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/smitThe 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, “Smit” — the most common surname in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-13.