Smalls

surname · English · Latin script

Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published

Smalls is a surname, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In St. Helena it is the 2nd most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Underwear.

rarermore common
  • GHGhana1 in 9.1K◐
  • USUnited States1 in 27K
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 87K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈12K ●

across 3 countries

Sources
315 ●

110K records

Official registry-verified

1 in 27K ◐

United States

Meaning & origin●

Underwear.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Smalls is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States—12,43597K rec.1 in 27K12KSmalls315
GB United Kingdom—2,6602.6K rec.——Smalls60
GH Ghana#1961,5391.6K rec.——Smalls9
MY Malaysia—9961K rec.——Smalls5
CA Canada—934944 rec.——Smalls32
JM Jamaica#206655657 rec.——Smalls4
AU Australia—645636 rec.——Smalls29
DE Germany—467455 rec.——Smalls34
IT Italy—426436 rec.——Smalls11
SH St. Helena#23391.1K rec.——Smalls1
RU Russia—249261 rec.——Smalls8
EG Egypt—221226 rec.——Smalls2

Roughly 12K people in United States bear this name (about 1 in 27K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.

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

Languages●

  • English105K86%
  • Spanish4.5K4%
  • 4.2K3%
  • German9571%
  • French7471%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English105,33486%
Spanish4,4964%
4,2013%
German9571%
French7471%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Smalls is also recorded as 2 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French surname794 records spelled Smalls3 spellings in the group

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

    Also written Smälls

  • Russian surname131 records spelled Smalls4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom

    Languages: Russian, Ukrainian

    Also written Смоллс

40 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●

Smalls 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, son of Smail

    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●

18001850190019502000Robert Smalls, b. 1839Bertie Smalls, b. 1935Henry Smalls, b. 1962Fred Smalls, b. 1963Tiger Smalls, b. 1969Susan Smith, b. 1971Joan Smalls, b. 1988Chris Smalls, b. 1988Kamiah Smalls, b. 1998

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).

Evidence●

Attested in 11 sources across 4 countries.

Official registers attesting Smalls
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201012K#2,888
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202012K#2,952
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200011K#3,049
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19733—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (surnames)20262—
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—2#396,438
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19932—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19832—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19822—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19762—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19742—
IN Indianaampy — India given names from state electoral rolls (in-rolls)19632—

Reference works 3

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • 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 2026-09-12 data build · 36 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Smalls?
We estimate roughly 12 thousand people bear Smalls (counting its spellings and scripts) across 3 countries in our records.
In which country does Smalls have the most bearers?
We estimate about 12 thousand people bear Smalls in the United States, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled smalls.
How common is Smalls compared with other names?
In St. Helena, Smalls is the 2nd most common surname of 2,166 surnames recorded there.
What does the name Smalls mean?
Recorded meaning: Underwear.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/smalls

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

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, “Smalls” — the 2nd most common surname in St. Helena. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Smalls parses inside a full name →