Given name & surname · also Old French
Richardson
Richardson is a surname from Old French, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic.
Meaning & origin
Where it comes from
Richardson comes from Old French, and ultimately from Proto-West Germanic.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
In English usage, Richardson as a surname has a “son of” formation linked to Richard.
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1919. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Richardson through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 669
- 669 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2000
- 16 babies
- 2025
- 10
- #8,110 for boys
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- +49%
- Rising
By the numbers
In 2025, this name appeared in 10 U.S. birth records for boys, ranking No. 8,110 among boys’ names. The recent annual counts are too incomplete to establish a ten-year comparison. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 1,016 as a first name in 2020; 249,840 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Richardson’s family of names
In English usage, Richardson as a surname has a “son of” formation linked to Richard. In German usage, Richardson as a surname has a conventional equivalent in the Welsh form PRITCHARD. In English usage, Richardson as a surname has a conventional equivalent in the Italian form RICCARDI.
Inner ring: nicknames and forms · outer: across languages.
Nicknames & forms 1
Diminutives, pet forms, short forms and variants used alongside the name.
Across languages 3
Equivalents and cognates in other languages, plus older forms it grew from.
People named Richardson
- RichardsonBrazilian association football playerborn 1991
- Richardson VianoHaitian alpine skierborn 2002
- Richardson HitchinsAmerican boxerborn 1997
- Richardson DilworthAmerican mayor (1898–1974)
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
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